THREE men were yesterday jailed for five years for possession, and possession with intent to supply, of around 700 grams of heroin.
Almost a year after their arrest, construction worker Huseyin Erdemirchi, 42, teacher Mehmet Akay, 43, and 28-year-old Cemal Georgancioglu, unemployed, were sentenced to five years in jail for possession and possession with intent to supply 713.5 grams of heroin.
The three had been arrested by drug squad officers early last February near the Holiday Inn hotel in downtown Nicosia.
The court heard that the drug squad had been informed that the defendants, along with two other men, would enter the government-controlled areas with a large quantity of heroin.
Officers following Erdemirchi and Akay saw them walking towards the municipal parking lot opposite the Holiday Inn.
At some point, Akay left the lot and walked back towards the CyTA roundabout, where he got into a car driven by the third defendant, Georgancioglu.
The two then drove back to the parking lot, where Erdemirchi was expecting them, the court heard.
Officers then saw him taking a plastic bag from the car and placing it next to the front wheel of a car parked nearby.
Two of the defendants were arrested on the spot while the third, who tried to flee the scene, was chased and caught just outside the parking lot.
The court said that the defendants were Turkish Cypriots who lived in the occupied north and had a clean record.
During mitigation, the defence lawyers limited themselves to referring to the defendants’ families and professional circumstances.
Erdemirchi is married and a father of two children aged eight and 13 years old while Georgancioglu is single.
Akay is also married with two children, aged 11 and 13, the court heard.
In its decision the court said that the nature of the crime left little room for mitigating circumstances.
“Thus, family and personal conditions did not, by rule, act in favour of the defendant, but to a limited degree in sentencing,” the court said.
“It is judged that the facts of the case do not justify differentiating the sentence between the defendants who, according to the evidence, acted collectively in possessing and carrying the specific amount of heroin, intending its supply to a third person, without of course needing to locate the specific buyer,” the court said.
The three men were sentenced to three years in jail for possession and five years for intent to supply.
The terms run concurrently.
