Suspended jail term for 0.4g of cannabis

A 26-year-old Polish student was yesterday given a suspended jail term for importing 0.4 grammes of cannabis.

Michael Kmiec had just disembarked from a flight from Madrid on Thursday when he was stopped at the airport during a routine inspection and Customs officers found cannabis in his possession.

Exhibiting a little plastic sachet containing the drug in court, Police Inspector Victor Aquilina stressed that the amount clearly suggested it was for the student's personal use.

But Magistrate Antonio Micallef Trigona said that, once the student was also charged with importation of the drug, a mandatory jail term had to be handed down.

Upon hearing this, Mr Kmiec stopped smirking and became visibly worried as the prosecutor and the magistrate discussed the law and whether the jail term could be suspended.

Taking into consideration the fact that Mr Kmiec has a clean police record and admitted to the charges of importation and simple possession, the court handed down a six-month jail term suspended for a year.

When the magistrate explained the seriousness of a suspended jail term to Mr Kmiec, he replied: "I really regret it".

Last August, an Italian tourist, Antonio Nacca, 22, was given a one-year conditional discharge after he was caught smoking a cannabis joint in St George's Bay, St Julians.

In 1997, a 22-year-old Swiss woman was jailed for six months when she was caught importing just under six grams of cannabis. The incident had sparked a negative reaction in Switzerland and other European countries.

The sentence was the minimum the woman could have been given. In fact, a month before she left Malta after serving her sentence in February 1998, Parliament had amended the drug laws to avoid a repeat of the case.