A promi­nent na­tion­al ath­lete, who has rep­re­sent­ed the coun­try in both the Com­mon­wealth and Olympic Games, is ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court this week to face charges of pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm, am­mu­ni­tion and mar­i­jua­na.

The 32-year-old ath­lete was held on Sat­ur­day af­ter­noon dur­ing a road check op­er­a­tion con­duct­ed by po­lice of­fi­cers near the Debe Round­about on the Sir Solomon Ho­choy High­way.

Up­on search­ing the ath­lete’s ve­hi­cle, of­fi­cers al­leged­ly found an il­le­gal hand­gun loaded with four rounds of am­mu­ni­tion, along with 62.5 grammes of mar­i­jua­na.

While it is per­mis­si­ble to car­ry mar­i­jua­na in pub­lic, the quan­ti­ty must not ex­ceed 30 grammes, and the ath­lete is now fac­ing mul­ti­ple charges for the pos­ses­sion of an il­le­gal firearm and am­mu­ni­tion.

The ath­lete was tak­en in­to po­lice cus­tody for ques­tion­ing fol­low­ing his de­ten­tion and is ex­pect­ed to make an ap­pear­ance in court im­mi­nent­ly.

In a sep­a­rate but re­lat­ed de­vel­op­ment, 22 dri­vers were charged with dri­ving over the speed lim­it dur­ing the same ex­er­cise.

The op­er­a­tion was car­ried out by a team of po­lice of­fi­cers led by In­sp Harold Ogiste and in­clud­ed Cpls Har­ri­lal and Mo­hammed, among oth­ers.

The coun­try’s ath­letes are held to the high­est stan­dards of con­duct and are ex­pect­ed to be ex­em­plary role mod­els.

—Ot­to Car­ring­ton