PHILIPSBURG--The Court of First Instance on Wednesday convicted two men on gun possession charges in unrelated cases. Both have the right to appeal their guilty verdicts.
In the first case, Chekhnariyo Metura (20) was sentenced to 24 months in prison, of which 20 months are suspended, on three years’ probation. The judge also handed him 60 hours of community service.
In the second case, Jason Arandel (21) was sentenced to 20 months in prison, of which 10 months are suspended, on three years’ probation. Authorities found him with a Glock handgun loaded with eight rounds of live ammunition on August 9.
Arandel did not deny the charge, but also did not go into much detail about why he acquired the firearm, only saying he had been threatened and needed it for protection. “I just got frightened and I wasn’t thinking to be honest,” he said.
This marks Arandel’s second conviction in a little more than two years.
In September 2023, the Court of First Instance sentenced him to four years in youth detention for shooting twice into a tinted vehicle on Pond Island on July 3, 2022, after the conclusion of the popular Buss Di Chains Cooler Fete. One of the bullets struck a 26-year-old man sitting in the vehicle’s passenger seat. He is now paralysed and in a wheel-chair.
During Arandel’s homicide trial, the prosecutor demanded nine years in prison, arguing for him to be sentenced as an adult.
However, the judge imposed juvenile law, finding Arandel guilty of attempted manslaughter and two counts of gun possession – one count for the 9mm pistol he used to fire into the car, and the other for a .38-calibre revolver and five rounds of live ammunition that police found on him when he was arrested on September 3, 2022.
Four years is the maximum sentence that the court can hand down to juvenile offenders.
The court had also ordered Arandel to pay Cg. 50,000 in damages to the victim’s family. It emerged on Wednesday that Arandel, who has found a job after being granted early release, has recently started paying US $200 per month.
