Fran­cis Joseph

Po­lice Con­sta­ble Nawaz Ali was sen­tenced yes­ter­day to five years in prison for ac­cept­ing a $1,500 bribe from a Cen­tral Trinidad busi­ness­man. Ali, 29, was qui­et as Jus­tice Mal­colm Holdip, pre­sid­ing in the Port-of-Spain Sec­ond Crim­i­nal Court, im­posed the sen­tence on the first-time of­fend­er.

Ali, a fa­ther of one, was ac­cused of re­ceiv­ing the mon­ey from Azard Ho­sein on Jan­u­ary 4, 2006 on the Uri­ah But­ler High­way, Char­lieville. He was found guilty last Fri­day but sen­tenc­ing was post­poned to yes­ter­day. He was ac­quit­ted on two oth­er charges. State at­tor­ney Sabri­ba Dougdeen pros­e­cut­ed, while Ravi Ra­j­coomar, rep­re­sent­ed Ali. An ap­peal was lodged hours af­ter the sen­tence was im­posed.

In pass­ing sen­tence, Holdip said Ali was of good char­ac­ter un­til the guilty ver­dict. He said Ali had tar­nished his rep­u­ta­tion and has end­ed his ca­reer as a po­lice­man. He said the main pur­pose of pun­ish­ment un­der the Pre­ven­tion of Cor­rup­tion Act was to pro­bi­hit pub­lic of­fi­cials from be­ing in­volved in cor­rupt prac­tices.

Holdip said the court had to im­pose a cus­to­di­al sen­tence com­men­su­rate with the se­ri­ous­ness of the of­fence. He added, "The pris­on­er stands in a spe­cial cat­e­go­ry as he is a mem­ber of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Po­lice Ser­vice. He has tar­nished their mis­sion state­ment–to pro­tect and serve with pride." Holdip said Ali had lost the right to be a mem­ber of the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.