PHILIPSBURG--After the Judge had established he had not been tried on similar charges in the British Virgin Island, the judge convicted Pierre Josias Neus (37) of people smuggling on Monday.
Judge Monique Keppels of the Court of First Instance sentenced Neus to 36 months, nine of which were suspended, on three years' probation.
The Judge deviated from the Prosecutor's 30-month demand to keep him from getting involved in people smuggling again.
The Court found Neus guilty of involvement in the August 2010 shipment of 65 illegal immigrants from Mullet Bay to the US Virgin Islands, as well as of several attempted people smuggling operations in July 2010.
The Judge held him for the captain of the boat, but Neus maintained he had been a passenger on board the Dieu Si Bon, visiting relatives in St. Thomas, and stated he had been the victim of mistaken identity.
Forced by engine trouble, the boat had to divert its course to Tortola, where passengers and crew were arrested by BVI authorities.
According to Neus' attorney Shaira Bommel the case against her client should be thrown out because he had already been tried and acquitted of the same crime in the BVI.
After studying documents provided by the Court in the BVI, the Judge came to the conclusion it could not be ascertained that Neus had been acquitted or discharged of people smuggling.
According to his lawyer, Neus had only been convicted of illegal entry. The people smuggling case against her client would have been "dismissed" during a court session of March 16, 2011, Bommel claimed.
Prosecutor Manon Ridderbeks said Monday the documents provided by the defence were not a copy of the verdict, but merely excerpts from the Court register. In the documents it was stated that Neus would not be tried on people smuggling charges because the main witnesses in this case, -two illegal immigrants from Haiti-, had withdrawn their cooperation and no additional evidence had been presented before a court of law, which is a requirement under British law.
Neus was one of many persons held during the large-scale "Cerberus" police investigations into people-smuggling operations in St. Maarten, involving shipments of immigrants from various Caribbean islands to US territory.
Neus told the Court he had spent seven months in detention in Tortola and had appeared in Court six times. "I was acquitted," he claimed, after which he returned to St. Maarten on March 28, 2011.
"Now I am detained for seven months again," he told the Judge, asking for her compassion.
After a 20 minute recess, Judge Keppels showed some leniency in imposing a partially suspended sentence.
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