A Libyan man was yesterday jailed for 15 years and fined Lm15,000 after jurors had found him guilty of dealing in heroin and cannabis.

At the end of a five-day trial and after 12 hours of deliberation, jurors last Friday found Mahmud Ali Amber guilty of conspiring to deal in the drugs, importing heroin and trafficking in cannabis by six votes to three.

Mr Amber had been charged with dealing in the drugs and importing heroin on April 10, 2000 and January 31, 2001 but jurors only found him guilty in the case of the January incident.

On handing down judgement yesterday morning Mr Justice Joseph Galea Debono took note of submissions on sentencing by the defence and the prosecution.

Lawyers Emmanuel Mallia and Giannella Caruana Curran noted that jurors had given the least possible verdict allowed by law after 12 hours of deliberation.

They also noted that Mr Amber had a relatively clean criminal record.

Assistant Attorney General Anthony Barbara pointed out that the verdict clearly showed that Mr Amber was the contact person for Malta in importing the drugs that were most detrimental to society and called on the court to hand down an exemplary punishment.

After taking the circumstances of the case into consideration, Mr Justice Galea Debono noted that Mr Amber was facing a jail term that ranged between four and 30 years and a fine of between Lm1,000 and Lm50,000.

The judge also noted, among other things, that Mr Amber had been found guilty of dealing in 73.5 grammes of heroin of 63 per cent purity as well as just over 75 grammes of cannabis.

The crimes of which he was convicted were a scourge to society and the ruin of the lives of many people, particularly young people, who became drug addicts so that drug importers, traffickers and accomplices made big money at their expense.

The judge jailed Mr Amber for 15 years and ordered that the time he spent in preventive custody be deducted from his jail term.