AN Indonesian national will serve one year and six months in jail with hard labour for possession of marijuana.
The Rabaul District Court today sentenced Rizki Rosianto, 26 of Panguang village, Tegal City in Central Java province in Indonesia.
He will serve his jail term at Bomana jail. Arrangements are being made to transport him from Rabaul Police Station where he is currently held in custody to Port Moresby.
East New Britain Commander Chief Inspector Joseph Tabali said Rosianto was charged recently with possession of 60 grams of marijuana on board a Korean fishing vessel, Shilla Pioneer and breach of Migration laws.
Mr Tabali said joint police, NFA, Customs and Immigration team engaged in a Regional Fisheries Surveillance Operations Patrol code name “Rai Balang 2021” boarded the vessel in New Ireland waters on Sunday April 4 at about 4:30 am. The operation is led by NFA’s Monitoring, Control and Surveillance.
During the search in one of the cabins of the ship that houses the Indonesians and one Filipino, two plastic lunch box containers containing the marijuana were discovered. The crew was then questioned on whom the drugs belonged to.
The suspect freely admitted that the drugs belonged to him. A message was sent to NFA in Port Moresby and the Captain of the vessel was instructed to sail into Rabaul Port for further investigations.
The vessel arrived at the Rabaul Port on April 5 and the suspect was handed over to the Rabaul police station commander the next day. The suspect again admitted the drugs were his and told police he had obtained the drugs from a local fisherman who had exchanged with him for three packets of cigarette, when they sailed into Rabaul Port in March this year.
“This is a good collective team work by state agencies like NFA, police, Customs and PNG Immigration,” Mr Tabali said.
Files for his charge of breaching Migration laws were not ready to present in court today.
