Two Kadavu youths jailed seven years for 1,202 marijuana plants
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.
Two unemployed youths from Kadavu, aged 19 and 20, were sentenced to seven
years’ imprisonment on 4 May 2020 for unlawful cultivation of an illicit drug.[1]They appeared before Justice Daniel Goundar at the Suva High Court after
earlier pleading guilty to the charge.[1]In March 2019 a team of police
officers raided a farm in Kadavu and found the two men near it; confronted, they
admitted cultivating marijuana.[1]The Fiji Sun named the men as Viliame
Mocevakaca, 20, and Josaia Delai, 19.[2]
Both will be eligible for parole after four years; the Fiji Sun reports the same
four-year non-parole period.[1]After the men led police to the farm, 1,202
plants between 15 and 163 centimetres tall were uprooted and seized as exhibits,
with a total weight of 25 kilograms.[2]Justice Goundar said cultivation of
marijuana, especially in secluded locations, was becoming too prevalent, and he
ordered the drugs destroyed forthwith.[1]
The judge also said drug cartels were turning to ordinary unemployed villagers
and exploiting their social-economic vulnerability, and that unemployment was no
excuse for cultivation.[2]fijivillage reported that the men had cultivated 25
kilograms’ worth of marijuana plants and that the incident happened in March the
previous year.[3]
Photos and video
Josaia Delai, 19, and Viliame Mocevakaca, 20, outside the High Court in Suva on 4 May 2020, the day they were sentenced. Photo: Ashna Kumar / Fiji SunPhoto details
fijivillagefijivillage.com2 unemployed youths who cultivated 25kg worth of marijuana plants sentenced to 7 years imprisonment
Open questions the AI reported
The reports do not give a day for the March 2019 raid; only the month is known.
The Fiji Times does not name the men; the names here come from the Fiji Sun and fijivillage, which spell the second surname both 'Mocevakaca' and 'Mocevakaceva'.
The sentence is a first-instance High Court sentence; no appeal is reported.
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.
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.