Former Suva lawyer jailed 20 months over 1 g cannabis and meth
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.
The Suva Magistrates Court sentenced former Suva lawyer Shazran Abdul Lateef to
20 months imprisonment for two counts of unlawful possession of illicit drugs.[1]Resident Magistrate Joseph Daurewa imposed the sentence after Lateef
pleaded guilty to both counts.[2]The court ordered the 20-month term to run
concurrently with the prison term Lateef is already serving for a separate
conviction.[1]Police found the drugs during a vehicle search, leading to
Lateef’s arrest and prosecution.[2]
The cannabis component in the case was 1.0 gram, alongside 1.81 grams of
methamphetamine.[1]On 13 August 2021, Lateef was travelling in a vehicle with
another person when police stopped and searched them.[1]Magistrate Daurewa
ordered the seized drugs to be destroyed within 28 days under court supervision.[2]Lateef has 28 days to appeal the decision.[3]
In mitigation, the court heard Lateef is 65, recently suffered a stroke, is
remorseful and cooperated with police.[1]The court also heard Lateef is a
drug addict and is willing to commit to rehabilitation.[1]The court treated
Lateef’s standing as a senior lawyer with more than 30 years of experience as an
aggravating factor.[1]The court set a starting point of 30 months
imprisonment before applying reductions.[2]The court rejected a suspended
sentence, finding imprisonment necessary despite his age and health.[2]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
The 1.81 grams of methamphetamine is mentioned only to explain the mixed case and is excluded from cannabis figures.
A prior three-year, eight-month sentence for a 2019 possession case is context for concurrency and is excluded from this event's figures as a separate event.
The exact location of the 13 August 2021 vehicle stop was not named beyond the Suva court case, so Suva is used as the place.
No photo or video showing the seizure, arrest or sentencing was established; available images show the accused and are not listed as event media.
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.
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.
