Prisoner seeks ruling on time in preventive custody

A convicted drug trafficker yesterday filed a constitutional application over the failure of the courts to acknowledge the time he spent in preventive custody.

Nazzareno Abela filed his application in the Civil Court against the attorney general, the courts registrar, the police commissioner and the director of the civil prisons.

He said he had pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges on January 24, 2000, and had been jailed for 11 years and fined Lm22,000. The judgment was confirmed by the Court of Criminal Appeal in April 2001.

Abela said neither court had made any mention of the three years he had spent in preventive custody in connection with these procedures.

He said that although he had been sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment, in reality he was going to serve a longer period of time.

He submitted that any period of imprisonment in excess of the 11-year term would be an illegal arrest and arbitrary detention, for no individual could serve a prison sentence longer than that for which he had been condemned.

Abela requested the court to declare that respondents were acting in violation of the constitution, and to order that the period of time spent in preventive custody be considered an integral part of his 11-year sentence.