Leah So­rias

An Aus­tralian boat cap­tain, who was charged with pos­ses­sion of two high-pow­ered ri­fles and 2,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, was de­nied bail yes­ter­day by a Port-of-Spain mag­is­trate. A frus­trat­ed-look­ing Michael Nor­man, of Nel­son Bay in Aus­tralia, stood be­fore Mag­is­trate Ava­son Quin­lan in Port-of-Spain 4b Court. He has al­so been charged with hav­ing in his pos­ses­sion 240 twelve-guage car­tridges, im­port­ing the weapons and am­mu­ni­tion, as well as mak­ing a false de­c­la­ra­tion to the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion. He plead­ed guilty to the four charges. The am­mu­ni­tion charges were laid by of­fi­cers of the Or­gan­ised Crime, Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau, and the oth­ers by the Cus­toms Di­vi­sion. Gor­don, who ar­rived in T&T last Wednes­day from Fort Laud­erdale, Flori­da, docked at Crews Inn, Ch­aguara­mas.

He de­clared two Win­ches­ter shot­guns and 1,000 rounds of am­mu­ni­tion. When the ves­sel was searched, how­ev­er, it was re­alised that the ri­fles and am­mu­ni­tion, which were al­so on the boat, were not de­clared. Fif­teen peo­ple were on the ves­sel at the time, but three have since re­turned to the US. Nor­man told Cus­toms of­fi­cers that the de­c­la­ra­tion form giv­en to him did not in­clude a sec­tion where he could de­clare the ri­fles, hence they were not on the form. His at­tor­ney An­tho­ny Cher­ry told Quin­lan that his client was on his way to South Africa, but stopped in T&T for one day to re­fu­el the boat and to in­stall spare parts. He said the ves­sel, which was used for en­vi­ron­men­tal pur­pos­es, was head­ing to the Sey­chelles, a group of is­lands in the In­di­an Ocean.

"Be­tween those ar­eas there is a lot of pira­cy oc­cur­ring, and a se­cu­ri­ty com­pa­ny which will ac­com­pa­ny the ves­sel there re­quest­ed the in­ven­to­ry of weapons," he said. He not­ed that Nor­man was in T&T for the 2007 World Cup and stayed for one month. "He used T&T as a stop­ping point, be­cause of the suc­cess of his stay for the World Cup," Cher­ry said. De­scrib­ing Nor­man's sit­u­a­tion as un­for­tu­nate and re­gret­table, Cher­ry point­ed out that his client did not try to hide the weapons, but in­formed Cus­toms of­fi­cers of the ad­di­tion­al weapons on the boat which were not de­clared. "He es­ti­mat­ed the am­mu­ni­tion to be about 2,000 rounds, as he did not know the amount and on the form he was on­ly asked whether he had a hand­gun or shot­gun, and he said yes,'" Cher­ry added.

The mag­is­trate ques­tioned whether a shot­gun was, in­deed, dif­fer­ent from a hand­gun, and was told by po­lice pros­e­cu­tor Sgt Win­ston Dil­lon that there was a dif­fer­ence. She then asked Cus­toms at­tor­ney Shirley Shep­pard why there was on­ly a sec­tion on the de­c­la­ra­tion form for hand­guns and shot­guns and not for ri­fles. "What is ob­vi­ous from this mat­ter is that this form needs re­fin­ing," she said. Shep­pard agreed. Cher­ry point­ed out that af­ter Nor­man in­formed of­fi­cers of the ad­di­tion­al weapons and am­mu­ni­tion on board the ves­sel, it was searched and he was charged. How­ev­er, Shep­pard said she knew noth­ing of this claim, that she was in­formed by of­fi­cers that the boat was searched for oth­er weapons. Ques­tioned by Quin­lan if such a search was usu­al­ly done, Shep­pard said no. An in­de­ci­sive Quin­lan ad­journed the mat­ter to to­day, when she is ex­pect­ed to give her rul­ing.