A Guyana Defence Force soldier appeared at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court yesterday charged with having carnal knowledge of a juvenile and was granted bail.

Nassim De Abreu, 24, of Leonora, West Coast Demerara (WCD) was not required to plead to the indictable charge of carnal knowledge and was granted $300 000 bail by Magistrate Nyasha Williams-Hatmin. It is alleged that on February 1 at Leonora, the accused had carnal knowledge of a female, who is under 15 years old. The matter was reported and following police investigations he was arrested and charged.

The court was informed that De Abreu is stationed at the army’s Anna Regina, Essequibo base. He was ordered to return to court on May 20.

Meantime, a man accused of escaping from the Leonora Police station in January was remanded to prison. Rajkumar Bukhan, 39, of 171 Tuschen, East Bank Essequibo pleaded not guilty to a charge of escaping from lawful custody. It is alleged that, Bukhan on January 11 at the Leonora Police Station, being in lawful custody on a criminal charge, escaped from the said custody. He was recently re-arrested and the charge laid against him.

Also at the Vreed-en-Hoop Magistrate’s Court yesterday, Ghani Gopaul called ‘Tony’ of 145 Meten-meer-Zorg, WCD, was granted $30,000 bail on drug charges. He was accused of possessing one gramme of cocaine for the purpose of trafficking on March 14 at Meten-Meer-Zorg. He denied this charge. He also denied having on that very day, an improvised pipe used for smoking charge. Gopaul, however, admitted that on the same day, he had one gramme of marijuana. He was fined $10,000 with an alternative of a month’s imprisonment on this charge.  Police had searched him and found the drug.