Suspended sentence for horse trainer, By: John Leonidou

A HORSE trainer was yesterday given a three-year suspended sentence for illegally bringing over steroids from the north for race horses.

Nicosia resident Jemal Ahmet, 51, was arrested in November 2004 after police found anabolic steroids in his Ayios Dhometios apartment.

Yesterday, Nicosia Judge Alexandros Panayiotou said that although the steroids themselves are not listed as illegal pharmaceutical products, the fact that Ahmet imported from the north, circulated and used them without the proper consent of the legal authorities showed a breach of the law.

Ahmet was charged with two counts of importing and illegally circulating pharmaceutical products without the required permit.

He had pleaded guilty to both charges.

The defendant had told the police in his written statement, that he would order the steroids from pharmacies in the north and that they would arrive from Germany via Turkey.

Ahmet would then bring the steroids into the north for the horses that he was training.

When asked by police officers why he was bringing them from the north, he simply told them that “they were much cheaper to buy in the north”.

Pleading mitigation, Ahmet, who was representing himself, told Judge Panayiotou that he has not worked at the horse racing track for three years because the horse racing authorities had expelled him.

Before his dismissal, he had worked at the horse race track for around 30 years.

Sentencing Ahmet yesterday, the judge said that the charges he was facing were serious and is punishable with a maximum sentence of five years or a fine of up to £50,000.

But the judge said that he took into consideration his clean record prior to the incident, his immediate confession and the fact that the prosecution had delayed in bringing the matter to court.

He jailed Ahmet to six months imprisonment for each of the charges before suspending them for three years.