David Ian Brathwaite, of St Michael, and Guyanese national Abdool Sameer Manan were sentenced in Barbados’ No. 5 Supreme Court on Thursday, 15 June 2023, for trafficking cannabis and cocaine into the country in 2017.[1] Justice Pamela Beckles sentenced Brathwaite to time served, having deducted 2 174 days on remand from a 12-year starting sentence for trafficking 72.1 kilogrammes of cannabis and 50.4 kilogrammes of cocaine.[1] Manan, who had been on bail, was sentenced to time served for the cannabis and fined $50 000 for the cocaine, with $20 000 due immediately and the $30 000 balance within 12 months or 661 days in prison.[1] Both men had pleaded guilty in March 2023 to six charges of possession, importation and trafficking of the cannabis and the cocaine.[2] They were convicted, reprimanded and discharged on the possession and importation charges, and Justice Beckles said the sentences must deter the men and other potential offenders.[1]

Coast Guard officers acting on a tip-off stopped the pirogue Solomon, registration M470, about 2.6 nautical miles off Maxwell, Christ Church, around 8:30 p.m. on 29 June 2017 and escorted the two men aboard to the Coast Guard base.[1] Seven packages were taken off the boat: 69 taped packages of cannabis and 44 taped packages of cocaine.[1]

At their first appearance in the Oistins Magistrates’ Court, a third man, Michael Emmanuel Yarde of St George, was charged alongside the two over the same June 2017 seizure and remanded with them to HMP Dodds; Magistrate Elwood Watts said they could apply for bail only through the High Court.[3]

Stabroek News republished the same sentencing account on 17 June 2023.[4]