Venezuelan Rejected By Ghana's Supreme Court

The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal filed by a Venezuelan citizen who was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment in hard labour for importing 588 kilogrammes of cocaine into Ghana.

Italio Gervasio Rosero aka Italio Cabeza Castillo was convicted to the sentence in November 2007 by an Accra Fast Track High Court.

He was arrested together with another Venezuelan, Joel Meija Duarte Moises on November 24, 2005 and were both put before the court for trial.

Although they consistently denied conspiracy to commit crime, importing 588 kilograms of narcotic drugs without lawful authority and possessing narcotic drugs without lawful authority charges proffered against them, the prosecution was able to prove beyond reasonable doubt that they had indeed committed the crime.

The court further ordered that the convicts, after serving their respective sentences should be deported to their home country.

Although he was sentenced in 2007, his sentencing was to take effect from the day they were arrested, November 24, 2005.

After serving almost 13 years of his jail term, Italio Gervasio went to the Supreme Court to appeal his sentence.

His case was that he was sentenced based on circumstantial evidence and prayed the court for leniency.

But a panel of five judges presided by Justice Sophia Adinyira with Justices Jones Dotse, Paul Baffoe-Bonnie, Sulemana Gbadegbe and Alfred Anthony Benin assisting, in a unanimous decision dismissed the appeal.

In a ruling read by Justice Jones Dotse, the Apex Court held that the application was frivolous and maintained that the lower court was right in its decision.

It held that the circumstantial evidence against the convict was overwhelming and the appeal thus lacked merit.

The court decried the menace of drug cases in the country carried out by both Ghanaians and foreigners and called for the need for deterrent to be served to others.