A Lithuanian man who bit two gardai who were trying to arrest him for dealing heroin in Dublin city centre has been given a suspended sentence on condition he gets a flight back to his own country on Sunday.
Lawyers for Waterford resident, Zilvinas Antanovas (27), said that he was duped into coming here from Lithuania by eastern European gangsters who took his passport and forced him to start dealing drugs in Waterford.
Garda Gerard Reddy said he didn’t accept this as the explanation behind Antanovas’ crimes.
Antanovas, of Johnston Bridge Apartments, Johnstown, Waterford city pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to possession of heroin at Exchange Street Lower, Dublin on January 18, 2014.
He also pleaded guilty to assaulting two gardai causing them harm and possession of a synthetic alternative to cocaine also known as M-CAT or Mephedrone, during the same incident.
Judge Mary Ellen Ring imposed a two and half year sentence to date from the time Antanovas went into custody last January.
She suspended the balance of the sentence on condition that he is picked up from Mountjoy prison on Sunday by gardaí and driven to the airport where he is to board a flight to his native country. Judge Ring ordered that he may not return to Ireland for five years.
Gda Reddy told Dara Hayes BL, prosecuting, that he and Garda Cian Fleming were on duty on the Dublin quays as part of an ongoing operation targeting street dealers.
They approached Antanovas on suspicion of drug dealing and found a €305 worth of heroin on him. He threw away a plastic bag but this was retrieved and found to contain an amount of M-CAT drug with a street value of €300.
Antanovas violently resisted arrest, biting one garda on his hand and another on his arm and spitting at them.
The plain clothes gardai had to use pepper spray on him twice as it failed to incapacitate him the first time, Garda Reddy said.
Antanovas has two previous convictions from Waterford District Court. Last January he received a four month suspended sentence for an offence of handling stolen property on October 22, 2013. He also received a six month prison sentence, suspended for one year, for dealing approximately €200 worth of heroin on December 2, 2013.
Vincent Heneghan BL, defending, told the court that his client had worked in forestry in Lithuania before coming here on the promise of a better job. He said he took a job cleaning cars but a criminal gang took his passport and forced him into drug dealing.
A Waterford court had previously ordered Antanovas to apply for temporary travel documents and leave the country but he didn’t do this. Counsel said his client was in Dublin that day because the criminal gang had called him and told him to go there.
