The Supreme Court of Seychelles has sentenced two Ugandan nationals and a Seychellois man in connection with drug-related offenses. Nadia Birungi, 27, and Mutongole, 39, received prison sentences of seven and five years respectively for the importation of illegal substances. Meanwhile, Seychellois national Michael Andrew Jean, 47, was sentenced to seven and five years for drug trafficking. All sentences will be served concurrently.
Birungi was apprehended on October 5 last year at Seychelles International Airport with 449.32 grams of cocaine. Mutongole, who arrived on the same Ethiopian Airlines flight, was found with 291.61 grams of cocaine. Customs officers, assisted by the Drug Unit, became suspicious and sent the two Ugandans for a CT scan at Seychelles Hospital, where they admitted to concealing drugs inside their bodies.
Jean, a resident of Corgate Estate on Mahe Island, was charged with two counts of trafficking in a controlled drug. He was found guilty of distributing the cocaine smuggled into the country by Birungi and Mutongole.
All three individuals pleaded guilty to the charges and accepted the prosecution’s account of events.
Seychelles, an archipelago in the western Indian Ocean, enforces a strict zero-tolerance policy on drug trafficking and importation. The maximum penalty for importing controlled substances is life imprisonment and a fine of SCR 1 million ($73,000), while trafficking offenses carry a maximum penalty of life imprisonment and a fine of SCR 750,000 ($55,000).
