A man arrested in Richmond earlier this year with a suitcase full of khat has been given a conditional discharge.
Liban Abdi Moalin, 46, pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance for the purpose of trafficking and was sentenced on Friday in provincial court in Richmond, B.C.
The conditional discharge includes a year of probation. If Moalin abides by all of the conditions imposed for the period of probation, he will not end up with a criminal record.
Moalin was arrested in April after he left a Sea Island shipping company with a 17-kg package of catha edulis, a plant native to East Africa and the Arabian Peninsula. The leaves of the shrub are typically chewed and held in the cheek to release stimulant chemicals. It is legal in many countries - it's estimated as many as 10 million people worldwide use khat - but in Canada it is prohibited under the Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.
According to court documents Moalin, an Ethiopian-born Canadian citizen who last lived in Alberta, has been convicted of similar crimes in the U.S.
In 2006, a jury in Madison, Wis., found Moalin guilty of possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver. Moalin was arrested after he took delivery of a shipment of khat plants from a friend in Italy. The shipment of 156 bundles of khat had been intercepted by U.S. Customs agents and was delivered to Moalin by a detective posing as a FedEx employee. Moalin later told police the plants were to be passed to another friend in Minneapolis, Minn.
He was sentenced to 30 days and three years of probation, revoked in October 2007 following his arrest for the same offence. He was then ordered to spend a year in state prison and a year on extended supervision for the violation.
In December 2007, Moalin pleaded guilty to possession of a controlled substance with intent to deliver and was sentenced to five months in jail, to run concurrent with the sentence he was already serving.
For more, go to theprovince.com
