Mozambique's top court cuts a cannabis seller's sentence to six years

Mozambique’s Supreme Court cut a cannabis seller’s prison sentence from seventeen years to six on 2 May 2024. Raiva Rafael Meponda, a police officer in Maputo, had been found with 590 grams of cannabis divided into 232 portions; the judges classified his business as small-scale trafficking and also imposed a 30,000-metical fine.

A search followed neighbours’ complaints

Residents and local authorities in Hulene, a Maputo neighbourhood, had reported suspected cannabis sales at Meponda’s home. Police searched the house under a warrant on 17 September 2019 and found cannabis in his bedroom and living room, together with packaging materials.

Laboratory tests identified the substance as cannabis. The judgment recorded a gross weight of 590 grams and found that Meponda intended to sell it to people who came to the house. The trial court imposed twenty years; an intermediate appeal reduced that sentence to seventeen.

The personal-use argument failed

Meponda asked the Supreme Court to treat the case as possession for consumption. Under the 1997 drug law, the ordinary personal-use offence carried up to two years and a fine, while ordinary trafficking carried sixteen to twenty years.

The judges rejected his account. They relied on the individual portions, packaging and frequent visitors, together with the finding that the cannabis was intended for sale. They also considered the amount greater than three days’ personal supply, while acknowledging that an individual’s consumption could not be fixed by an inflexible quantity.

A simple business brought a shorter sentence

The court then examined how Meponda sold the cannabis. He appeared to work alone, selling small amounts directly to customers at home, without sophisticated equipment or an organised distribution structure. No proceeds from sales had been seized during the search.

Those circumstances led the judges to apply the lesser offence of small-scale trafficking, whose sentence ranged from two to eight years plus a fine. They considered the amount and type of drug alongside the way the business operated. Meponda’s position as a police officer counted against him when they chose six years.

Six years under a law being debated

The final ruling left Meponda convicted of trafficking and imposed the shorter prison term with the fine. It showed the practical importance of distinguishing a small direct seller from a more organised operation under the same law.

Three months later, President Filipe Nyusi called for studies on legalising cannabis. His appeal for reflection followed a case in which selling less than a kilogram had still resulted in years of imprisonment in Mozambique.^[1][2]