Tema, Sept. 08, GNA -- The Tema Circuit Court 91A' on Wednesday sentenced a 51-year-old mechanic, to 12 months imprisonment with hard labour for dealing in narcotic drugs. The convict, Edmund Mensah, who is to serve his sentence retrospectively from November 2 last year, the day he was arrested, will pay an additional fine of 1,200 Ghana Cedis.

Mensah was convicted on his own plea of guilty but explained that he started smoking Indian hemp as a technical school student, and had since become addicted to it.

He pleaded for leniency, saying that he thought he could not live without smoking drugs, but had repented since his arrest.

Police Chief Inspector Adolphus Otchere, told the court presided over by Justice Laurenda Owusu, that on November 2, 2010, at about 3:45pm, the convict was spotted in his car at Community Six in Tema, wrapping dried leaves suspected to be Indian Hemp.

According to the prosecutor, the complainant, a District Police Commander at Dodowa, arrested him together with the wrapper and handed him over to the Community Two Police.

When the exhibit was later taken to the Crime Laboratory for examination, it tested positive for narcotics, the prosecution added.