A JUDGE has jailed a 60-year-old Portuguese “drugs mule” for three years and four months.
At Ennis Circuit Court, Judge Francis Comerford imposed the 40-month prison sentence on Maria Lucilia Martins of Lisbon, Portugal, after she was found with cannabis worth an estimated €479,245 at Shannon Airport on April 7 this year.
Judge Comerford said that with “the amount of damage drugs do, there has to be a significant period of jail”.
In evidence, Detective Sergeant Dara O’Sullivan said that a member of the Customs department at Shannon Airport found Ms Martins to be in possession of suitcases both vacuum packed with 22 packs of cannabis herb and 30 packs of cannabis resin.
Counsel for the State, Sarah Jane Comerford, instructed by State Solicitor for Clare, Aisling Casey, said that Ms Martins had just arrived into Shannon off a flight from Faro, Portugal.
Ms Comerford said that, in response to caution and charge, Ms Martins said: “I don’t know about it. I know there is evidence and exhibits. They were in my suitcases. I only saw them when the suitcases were opened.”
Counsel for the accused, Michael Collins, instructed by solicitor John Casey, said that there was “a rambling incoherence” to Ms Martin’s replies during a Garda interview after arrest.
During the Garda interview, Ms Martins said: “If you want to call me a mule or a horse or whatever else, I will say whatever else you want to hear.”
Ms Martins also said: “Yes, yes I’m a mule, what do people want?”
Detective Sergeant O’Sullivan said that over three interviews, Ms Martins denied knowledge as to how the drugs got into her suitcases.
He said that Ms Martins has no previous convictions and lives in rented accommodation with her sister in Portugal.
He told the court that her husband lives in India, and she has not seen him in person in five years but sees him every day online.
Ms Martins was before Ennis Circuit Court on foot of a signed plea of guilty to possession with intent to sell or supply cannabis at Shannon Airport on April 7.
She also pleaded guilty concerning the importation of cannabis at the same location on the same date.
The sign pleas removed the need for the State to prepare a Book of Evidence in the case.
In sentencing Ms Martins, who is 61 next month, Judge Comerford said that the large quantity of drugs was an aggravating factor in the case.
He said that nobody is suggesting anything other than a profit motive in the case for Ms Martins transporting the drugs.
The judge said that the headline sentence in the case was 80 months, but he was reducing the prison term to 40 months after taking into account Ms Martins’ early guilty plea, her previous good character, and her age.
He backdated the 40-month prison term to April 8, when Ms Martins remanded to the women’s wing of Limerick Prison.
