A High Court judge has sen­tenced two Trinida­di­an drug smug­glers to serve time af­ter they plead­ed guilty to pos­ses­sion, traf­fick­ing and im­port­ing 167.5 pounds of mar­i­jua­na with­in Bar­ba­dos’ ter­ri­to­r­i­al wa­ters on Oc­to­ber 14, 2021.

The men, Ron­delle Mik­lle Kendall and Tevin Den­zil Bel­fon, apol­o­gised to the court and Bar­ba­di­ans for their ac­tions ask­ing for a sec­ond chance, telling Jus­tice An­tho­ny Black­man that they would like the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­turn home to do right by their fam­i­lies.

The judge gave each of the con­vict­ed men a start­ing sen­tence of sev­en years and af­ter sev­er­al de­duc­tions, in­clud­ing the dis­count of one-third for their ear­ly guilty plea, the 1 100 days on re­mand, and for the de­lay in the mat­ter be­ing brought to tri­al, 267 days were left to be served.

Jus­tice Black­man said a fur­ther cus­to­di­al sen­tence was not war­rant­ed and rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged Kendall and Bel­fon on the pos­ses­sion charge; con­vict­ed, rep­ri­mand­ed and dis­charged the two men on the im­por­ta­tion of­fence, and gave them time served for the traf­fick­ing of­fence.

The men were re­leased in­to the cus­tody of im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials for the de­por­ta­tion process to be­gin.

Last week, their co-con­spir­a­tor, fel­low Trinida­di­an, Shel­don Adi­moolah, was al­so deemed to have served his time and was hand­ed over to im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cials.

BRIDGETOWN, Bar­ba­dos, Oct 29, CMC –

CMC/ag/ir/2024