SVG is not a transhipment point, says Magistrate Browne

Senior Magistrate Donald Browne is making it clear to foreigners that St Vincent and the Grenadines is not a transhipment centre for drugs.{{more}}

At a sitting of the Kingstown Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, August 3, 2010, Browne spoke about a matter concerning Trinidad national, Brusnton Charleau.

Charleau pleaded guilty to entering these shores illegally and was ordered to be deported with immediate effect.

An officer present in court told the Magistrate that information was received that Charleau had brought cocaine from Trinidad. He, however, stated that no cocaine was ever found.

Charelau came to St. Vincent on July 25, 2010, and was staying with a man, whom he referred to as “Mitchy”, in Chateaubelair. He was nabbed by police on July 31, 2010.

An irate Magistrate Browne said, “We got information on you chaps that come from Trinidad to drug men here, but there is no evidence of it…If you know you are coming to this country to break the law, you are making St Vincent look like a transhipment centre and we are not that. We are decent people,” Browne asserted.

Browne further contended that the man whom Charleau was staying with should have been arrested for harbouring an illegal immigrant. “I don’t know why the police did not lock him up for this. (KW)