Logger remanded on ammo possession charge

Appearing on Monday before Linden Magistrate Clive Nurse on a charge of possession of ammunition without a licence, forty-three-year-old logger Sunil Roopnarine of Alliance Road, Timehri, East Bank Demerara (EBD) pleaded not guilty to the charge; and defence counsel Yohance Welcome, in an application for bail, noted that the defendant, sole bread-winner for his family, denied having knowledge of the said ammunition, and was arrested only because he was implicated by the minibus conductor.
Counsel noted that the defendant was at the time a passenger of a minibus heading into the interior, and the bag in which the ammunition was found was neither on the defendant’s person nor did he claim ownership of the bag.
But the prosecution, in objecting to the defendant being placed on bail, cited the seriousness and gravity of the offence, and detailed that the father of three was reportedly nabbed with six live twelve-gauge cartridges by Police conducting a routine stop-and-search operation at Bamia on the Linden-Soesdyke Highway on August 31. The ammunition was allegedly found in a white salt bag which the defendant told Police belonged to him. Further checks on the bag revealed the presence of the ammunition, and the defendant was accordingly arrested.
Magistrate Nurse thus remanded the defendant to prison until October 4.