Tavua man jailed nearly six years for growing cannabis
Sivaniolo Delasau of Tavua was sentenced to five years and eleven months in prison, with four years non-parole, for cultivating 26 cannabis plants and possessing dried cannabis he admitted growing to sell in Ba. The court ordered the seized cannabis destroyed within 30 days.
Sivaniolo Delasau of Tavua was sentenced to five years and eleven months in prison for cultivating cannabis and possessing illicit drugs, with a non-parole period of four years.[1][2]He was convicted of cultivating 26 cannabis plants, reported as weighing 13.050 grams, and of possessing more than 114 grams of dried cannabis leaves and plant material.[1][2]He must serve at least four years before parole eligibility.[1]
Delasau had told police he grew the plants for commercial purposes and intended to sell the cannabis in Ba.[1][2]He received an additional 30 days’ imprisonment for the possession charge, to run concurrently with the cultivation sentence.[1][2]
Destruction order
The court ordered the seized cannabis destroyed within 30 days, with a destruction report to be filed with the court.[1][2]
Magistrate Timoci Qalinauci imposed the sentence after Delasau pleaded guilty to unlawful possession and cultivation of illicit drugs.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
Former Suva lawyer Shazran Abdul Lateef was sentenced to 20 months' imprisonment for possessing 1.0 gram of cannabis alongside methamphetamine. The Suva Magistrates Court ordered the term to run concurrently with his existing prison term and the drugs destroyed within 28 days.
Waisake Kaloulia’s nineteen-year cannabis cultivation sentence was reduced to fifteen years, and Kaminieli Naqeleca’s eighteen years to fourteen. The Court of Appeal applied its newer plant-count and role guidelines to the men’s older case, involving a remote plantation with at least 208 whole plants confirmed in the analyst’s report.
Two unemployed youths from Kadavu were sentenced to seven years in prison at the Suva High Court on 4 May 2020 after pleading guilty to cultivating marijuana on a farm raided in March 2019. Police uprooted and seized 1,202 plants weighing 25 kilograms, and both men become eligible for parole after four years.
Arisi Kaitani, a 27-year-old farmer from Kadavu, was sentenced in the Suva High Court on 16 July 2018 to 14 years and two months in prison for unlawful cultivation of marijuana. Police uprooted 820 plants when they raided his farm on 15 September 2016, and the judge set a non-parole period of 10 years and two months.
