WESTERN BUREAU:
SAPPHIRE JOHNSON, one of nineteen Britons who were arrested at the Sangster International Airport three weeks ago, was sentenced to nine months at hard labour and ordered to pay $305,000 in fines in the Montego Bay RM court yesterday.
Johnson pleaded guilty to the charges of possession, dealing in and attempting to export 88 pounds of ganja out of the island when she appeared in court last Monday. On previous court appearances she had pleaded not guilty to the charges but the court was not told yesterday the reason why she changed her plea.
She was sentenced and fined by Resident Magistrate for St. James Wilson Smith who ruled last Monday that she would be sentenced yesterday after hearing from her attorney Sandra Graham-Bright and mother Madria Johnson, who appeared as a character witness for her daughter. According to court reports Johnson was among a group of 19 Britons who had checked in a number of suitcases on an Air 2000 flight bound for London on November 19. Johnson had checked in two gray suitcases and when sniffer dogs alerted the police 44 packages of ganja were found in them. The drug weighed a total of 88 pounds.
When Madria Johnson appeared in court last Monday she tearfully said that her daughter's actions were totally out of character since she doesn't even smoke cigarettes. Graham-Bright begged for leniency for her client saying that Johnson's action could be blamed on post-traumatic stress disorder since certain tragedies, including the death of her father and baby father, had befallen her recently.
"She takes ful lresponsibility for her action." Graham-Bright noted. "She realised at a late stage how serious the circumstances against her were and she throws herself at the mercy of the court."
So far 15 of the Britons has already been sentenced and fined. The total weight of the drug found in their suitcases was 1,722 pounds and it was estimated to worth some $17 million.
