A shipping container was transported to Kadavu to hold marijuana plants seized by the Fiji Police Force.
While updating the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence on the force’s efforts to eradicate marijuana farms within the province, Assistant Commissioner (Planning, Research and Doctrines) Aporosa Lutunauga said this was to ensure the drugs were secured while awaiting the court’s approval to destroy the plants.
“As far as the Fiji police is concerned, after uprooting the plants, there is a certain legal process that has to be followed in order for it to be destroyed,” he said.
“We cannot just destroy it on the farm. We need to go to the courts first.
“We have to establish the owners, and if the owners are not established, the court will only issue the order if there’s been a preliminary investigation and that we have exhausted all avenues of investigation in asserting the owners of those farms.
“Once we have exhausted those, then the court will then give us the warrant or the court order to destroy it.”
He said the process took time.
“Those are the challenges we are facing.
“For example, in Kadavu, we had to ship across a container. That becomes our exhibit for the court.
“Those are the mitigation strategies that we have undertaken so that we can protect our evidence and have it disposed of legally.”
