A South African truck driver who was recently convicted of drug trafficking has been sentenced to five years in prison and a P20 000 fine. The fine is to be paid within two days from sentence date and failure to do so will lead him to another 5 years in prison.
The Woolworths truck driver was on the 28th January this year charged with drug trafficking after he was found with five packages of a green substance suspected to be dagga at Makalamabedi Veterinary gate during a police routine stop and search. The greenish substance was at a later stage confirmed to be dagga weighing 29.4 kilograms.
When delivering the sentence Maun Chief Magistrate Thebeetsile Mulalu indicated that he took into consideration that Skhosana was a first time offender and his mitigation plea that he did not benefit anything from the offence since all the offending materials were recovered.
“I shall take into consideration the accused person’s argument for his sentence to not be over influenced by the seriousness of the offence and the substantial quantity of the material and impose a sentence that may break the accused person,” Mulalu noted.
On the other hand Mulalu highlighted that the accused person stands convicted for a serious offence adding that a person convicted for such an offence stands to be sentenced to a fine not exceeding P500 000 and a jail term not exceeding 25 years or both.
When convicting the accused person on his previous court appearance Mulalu concluded that the accused person protected the identity of the dealer and that of the supplier as he did not inform the police as to where he was taking them to.
Mulalu further noted that all the state witnesses denied the accused person’s defence that all the state witnesses denied Skhosana’s defence that he gave the police particulars of the person he alleged to have tog the package from, adding that the prosecution did not have any ulterior motives to pin the offence to him.
“If the accused person provided enough information the police would have been more interested in nabbing the supplier and dealer hence, I refuse to believe that the police settled for the carrier when they had a chance to nab the root supplier of the illegal substance,” Mulalu previously said.
During trail state witnesses who were police officers on duty at the gate revealed that they discovered one package of below the passenger seat, two behind the same seat and two more packages at the back of the Mercedes Benz truck similar to those found at the front seat.
The two witnesses further revealed that when they asked the suspect what the packages contained his response was that they were decorative cloths given to him by an unknown man at Kwa Nokeng filling station in Maun and was asked to give to a certain man in Francistown.
The accused person’s attorney Clifford Foroma however previously told court that police were given names of the man who gave his client the said packages therefore he does not understand why all the witnesses were denying it. He argued that it was unfortunate that the suspect was found with the said dagga despite the fact that it does not belong to him as he is just a truck driver.
Shkosana’s five-year jail term will take into account months he spent in prison since January 2022 after his arrest.
