A British national who pleaded guilty to a trafficking in narcotics charge yesterday told the court that he was tricked since the pellets he swallowed were to have contained diamonds, not cocaine.
George Onyekachi Agbapuruonwu, a 25-year-old London resident and student at the University of Greenwich, was arrested at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport, Timehri on Christmas Eve day. He later excreted 40 cocaine pellets at the hospital.
Yesterday, a calm-looking Agbapuruonwu appeared before Magistrate Hazel Octive Hamilton in the Georgetown Magistrate’s Court charged with the offence.
After pleading guilty to the charge and giving an explanation, he was sentenced to four years in prison together with a $363,075 fine.
Last Monday, he had in his possession 485 grammes of cocaine for trafficking.
Police Prosecutor Desiree Fowler is reading the short facts of the case told the court that on the day in question around 5.25 am, Agbapuruonwu was an outgoing passenger at the airport bound for London via Port of Spain and Miami. Fowler said ranks of the police narcotics branch who were on duty at the time, noticed that he was acting in a suspicious manner and arrested him. She said he was later escorted to the Georgetown Public Hospital where he excreted 40 pellets containing suspected cocaine.
They were weighed and amounted to 485 grammes of cocaine. Agbapuruonwu was told of the offence and charged.
In court yesterday, dressed in a grey Guyana souvenir t-shirt and black jeans, Agbapuruonwu repeatedly cracked his knuckles, licked his lips and stared at the floor.
He said he came from London about two weeks ago to see a young woman by the name of “Micha” who he met on the internet.
When he arrived, he said, the young woman took “me somewhere for a couple of nights”, adding that while he was there he met a man twice and the man asked him to take diamonds back to London for him.
“He said that if I take half and he takes half himself, it will be cheaper.
He wouldn’t have to ship them. I asked him if they were blood diamonds,” he added.
According to him, after the man assured him that everything would be all right he agreed to take them.
“He said that to protect the condition I should swallow the diamonds and I did so.
He said that they will be checked by customs if I just kept them in my bag and then they would get damaged,” he added.
Agbapuruonwu told the court that the supposed diamonds were wrapped up; the outside of the wrapping was transparent and the inside was white.
“I thought that it was the diamonds wrapped in tissue… I wouldn’t have risked my life if I knew that it was that,” he said.
Begging the court for mercy, he said he was never arrested before and he had nobody in Guyana.
He said he was born in London and his parents were there too.
In handing down her sentence, the magistrate said that she was taking off a year from the prison term because he pleaded guilty and Agbapuruonwu thanked her. After he has served his sentence, he will be deported.
