A woman who sold drugs from her Għajnsielem bar has been jailed for six years and fined €5,000.

Susan Bugeja, 50, pleaded guilty to possession and trafficking of cocaine within some 20 to 30 metres of an English language school at Ghajnsielem, Gozo back in July 2013.

The police had kept an eye on the bar and arrested the woman after questioning and searching a number of persons who went there. They found them in possessions of sachets of white powder, later certified as cocaine.

After arresting the woman, the police searched the premises and found sachets of drugs in cigarette packets inside a metal box.

Under interrogation, the woman admitted to the trafficking but did not disclose  the name of her supplier.

In the course of criminal proceedings, a number of individuals testified to having purchased cocaine from the bar, some saying that they paid €50 each time

The statements released by the accused were eventually discarded as evidence against her since they had been released without the assistance of a lawyer.

A psychiatrist, testifying in the proceedings, explained how the accused, a mother raising a teenage child single-handedly after her husband landed under house arrest in Sicily, had been through a traumatic personal experience which had caused great stress.

He said the woman was a “vulnerable” person, a follower rather than a leader by nature. She had sought drugs as an easy way out of her stressful situation, ending up sucked into a drug circle.

A social inquiry report, updated last November, confirmed that the accused was handling two jobs, doing her best to raise her family and maintaining a degree of stability in her personal life.

Magistrate Joseph Mifsud, observed that the evidence, including the testimony of those who had bought drugs from the accused’s bar as corroborated by the surveillance officers, pointed in the direction of the woman’s guilt.

Whilst acknowledging that the accused had been going through difficult times, this did not reduce her criminal responsibility nor justify what she did.

The woman had been selling drugs to young persons and others, thereby  leading them into the grips of the deadly vice, he observed. 

He condemned her to a 6-year jail term and a €5000 fine.

Inspector Bernard Charles Spiteri prosecuted