70-year-old Trinidad & Tobago man charged for importing illegal guns

A 70-year-old cancer patient will return to court on September 3 after he was released on TT$ 1 million, bail on charges of illegally importing guns and ammunition into the country.

Morrisson Mewalal, who recently returned to Trinidad and Tobago after residing for several years in Philadelphia is accused of importing, from the United States, 6,540 rounds of ammunition into this country in Danish Cookie tins.

When he appeared before Magistrate Indira Misir-Gosine in the Princes Town Magistrates’ Court on Friday, he was also charged with illegally having a shotgun in his possession.

Mewalal, a recovering cancer patient, was unable to post the bail and as a result was remanded into custody at the Maximum State Prison.
The charges stem from the largest ever ammunition seizure here after police on August 5 executed a search warrant at his home one day before the accused returned to the country. Two people who had been detained following the raid, were later released.

According to the charges, Mewalal who gave himself up to the police on his arrival from the United States, is accused of importing 6,490 rounds of .22 ammunition and 50 rounds of .35 ammunition, he not being the holder of a permit to do so. The second charge alleged that he imported a rifle between those same dates.

Defence attorney Shubas Panday told the magistrate that Mewalal lived in Philadelphia for the past 20 years, but had lived in Piparo before he migrated.