Two women who are accused of attempting to post a package with cocaine concealed in it via a postal service were both remanded to prison until April when they appeared yesterday before Magistrate Hazel Octive Hamilton at the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court.

Oma Bissan, also known as Shelly, who resides in the US and Jacklyn Ann Marie Simpson, a Jamaican who resides in Canada, both pleaded not guilty to the charge of trafficking in narcotics.

It is alleged that on November 17, Bissan was found with 618 grammes of cocaine for the purpose of exportation.
It is also alleged that on November 19 at Camp Street, Bissan and Simpson were found with 599 grammes of cocaine for the purpose of exportation.
Bissan’s lawyer, Glenn Hanoman applied for bail on the grounds that she is a mother of a two-month-old child who is being breastfed. He said he had spoken to investigators and was instructed that the offence took the form of a postal incident since the crime had allegedly taken place at a postal service. Hanoman also stated that his client should have been charged “with the bailable offence of posting under the Act.”

Meanwhile, Simpson’s lawyer Vic Puran applied for bail stating that his client was charged for exporting narcotics and according to him the prosecution was relying on the amount of the narcotics that were present to build its case. He said that it was unlawful and unconstitutional to reverse the burden of the truth. Puran said the narcotics have not been extracted from the solution and therefore the actual amount is still not certain.

He went on to say that the charge against Simpson is a summary one and “this court have to do summary justice.” Puran further posited that the manner in which the offence was allegedly committed is a special circumstance since posting of the narcotics had been recognised by parliament as a bailable offence.

The prosecution objected to the bail applications stating that the issue of “special circumstance does not apply in this case.” The prosecutor explained that the issue of posting as it relates to trafficking is not an issue to build a special circumstance and added that at the appropriate time the prosecution would establish its case.

The magistrate then ordered that both Bissan and Simpson be remanded to prison and that they return to court on April 6 next year.