![\"\"](\"http:\/\/dominicanewsonline.com\/dno\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/08\/courtnews1.jpg\" "\\"courtnews\\"")
Leon Casimir of Grand Bay and his lawyer Gina Dyer-Munro were unable to convince Magistrate Ossie Lewis to grant him bail after being charged for the possession and intent to supply 322 grams of cannabis on Friday.<\/p>\nLeon Casimir of Grand Bay and his lawyer Gina Dyer-Munro were unable to convince Magistrate Ossie Lewis to grant him bail after being charged for the possession and intent to supply 322 grams of cannabis on Friday.<\/p>\n
Dyer-Munro however assured the magistrate that she will take the matter to the High Court.<\/p>\n
They appeared before Lewis yesterday morning where Casimir pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wouldn\u2019t object… I will deal with it in the High Court,\u201d Dyer-Munro stated after the magistrate denied her application for bail.<\/p>\n
Casimir, as argued by the police prosecutor, was on a $510,000 bail after allegedly being caught with a 16-seater bus filled with cannabis some time ago.<\/p>\n
According to the police, the defendant had breached a condition of his bail, by allegedly committing last week\u2019s offense. One of his bail conditions, according to the prosecutor, was that he not commit any offense while on bail.<\/p>\n
Lawyer Dyer-Munro had argued that legislation states that bail can only be denied when there are doubts that a defendant will not attend trial, abscond, if he is a flight risk or will interfere with investigations. She told the court that the prosecution had not accused her client of any of these.<\/p>\n
The lawyer contended that her client had not been convicted of any offense but had only been charged, and to assume that a person is guilty when they are merely charged is a direct contradiction to the principle that \u201cone is innocent until proven guilty\u201d.<\/p>\n
Magistrate Lewis therefore disagreed and denied her application for bail. He told the lawyer that the conditions for granting bail is part and parcel with the reasons for granting bail, whereas a defendant is told that if any bail condition is breached he runs the risk of forfeiting bail.<\/p>\n
The magistrate said that committing an offense does not mean that one is convicted. He told the court that having a charge indicates that the police have enough evidence to support their claims.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll bail conditions have their weight… if at all they are breached then the person is in danger of forfeiting the bail,\u201d he told the lawyer.<\/p>\n
Dyer-Munro told the court that Casimir had been jointly charged with another individual for the previous offense.<\/p>\n
Moreover, Casimir denied having the cannabis in Fond Baron last week where he was allegedly caught by police.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know not to carry any marijuana or cigar on me because of that high bail,\u201d he told the court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Leon Casimir of Grand Bay and his lawyer Gina Dyer-Munro were unable to convince Magistrate Ossie Lewis to grant him bail after being charged for the possession and intent to supply 322 grams of cannabis on Friday. Dyer-Munro however assured…","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":16578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_cbd_carousel_blocks":"[]","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20845","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-crime-court-law"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n