Kadavu farmer jailed 14 years and two months over 820 marijuana plants
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.
Arisi Kaitani, a 27-year-old farmer from Kadavu, was sentenced to 14 years and
two months in prison by the High Court in Suva on 16 July 2018 for cultivating
marijuana.[1]High Court Justice Vincent Perera convicted Kaitani of one count
of unlawful cultivation of illicit drugs.[1]Justice Perera treated Kaitani as
a first offender who had engaged in large-scale production of illicit drugs.[2]The court set a non-parole period of 10 years and two months.[1]
Police raided Kaitani’s farm at his village in Kadavu on 15 September 2016 and
found him with another person uprooting marijuana plants.[1]During the raid
police uprooted 820 marijuana plants.[1]fijivillage reported that the judge
sentenced him for cultivating 824 marijuana plants at a farm in Kadavu.[2]
Kaitani had been remanded in custody for one year and 10 months, and that time
was deducted from his head sentence to leave 14 years and two months to serve.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The Fiji Times gives 820 plants uprooted in the 15 September 2016 raid; fijivillage gives 824. The report uses the Fiji Times figure and notes the difference.
The Fiji Times does not name Kaitani's village in Kadavu, so no more precise raid location is recorded.
The Fiji Times describes Kaitani as found "with another" person uprooting plants but names no second suspect and reports no charge against anyone else.
No weight of the plants, street value, appeal or forfeiture was reported.
Both accounts are short court reports; the full judgment was not opened.
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.
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.
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.
