THE South African woman who was convicted of illegal possession of 2kg of cocaine last week yesterday pleaded for leniency from the court and was further remanded to today for sentence.
SENIOR REPORTER
Ncombo Theodorah Tobeka (48) of Qweqwe Location, Umtata in Eastern Cape, South Africa, was intercepted by the police at Harare International Airport while carrying the illicit drug.
She told presiding magistrate Donald Ndirowei in mitigation that she was sorry and asked the court to consider that she was a first offender.
She was convicted of contravening Section 156 of the Criminal Law (Codification and Reform) Act chapter 9:23 as read with Section 14 of the Dangerous Drugs Act chapter 15:02 Thobeka is unemployed.
She was arrested on December 18 last month by detectives from CID Drug Squad deployed at Harare International Airport.
That was after the detectives had received information that the woman was coming to Zimbabwe from Colombia aboard an Ethiopian Airline plane landing at the airport around midday and was carrying dangerous drugs.
The detectives made a follow-up and liaised with immigration officials for her identification.
- Chamisa under fire over US$120K donation
- Mavhunga puts DeMbare into Chibuku quarterfinals
- Pension funds bet on Cabora Bassa oilfields
- Councils defy govt fire tender directive
Keep Reading
At around 1 o’clock, the plane landed and Tobeka disembarked. She was identified upon presenting her South African passport to an immigration official for clearance and detectives were alerted.
The detectives monitored her movements from the immigration cubicles and intercepted her when she was just about to leave the Zimra cubicles heading out of the airport.
A search was conducted on her person and her suitcase from which was retrieved four textbooks, each containing two plastic envelopes glued to both side covers with a whitish substance which was later established to be cocaine.
The eight envelopes were taken for weighing in her presence and recorded a weight of 2,108kg.
Field tests were conducted and the substance tested positive for cocaine.
