Marvin Pavia, 32, was this morning jailed for nine years and fined €5,000 after admitting in court shortly before he was to undergo trial, that he was an accomplice in the trafficking of cannabis.

In handing down sentence, Chief Justice Vincent Degaetano remarked that this could not be considered as an early guilty plea since proceedings had been started in 2004. This was a classic case where the accused could have saved himself and the court valuable time by filing an early guilty plea, thus possibly also benefiting from a shorter jail term.Furthermore, the case involved the trafficking of some 1.5kg of drugs and the accused had done so for a profit, and not because he was an addict.

The court also observed that the drug trafficking had taken place on a number of occasions and the accused had also been an intermediary for the trafficking of drugs.

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