The New Zealand Parole Board has announced that Fijian national Aiyaz Mohammed Musa Umarji appeared before it last Wednesday. Umarji was sentenced to four years in prison in August 2023 by the New Zealand High Court for importing pseudoephedrine tablets, a precursor to methamphetamine, into the country.
Court documents indicate that Umarji and an accomplice had organized the shipment of 3,600 packets of the medicine from Turkey to Fiji via New Zealand, totaling 108,000 pills that entered New Zealand. At the time of the offense, he was the owner of Hypercam Pharmacy in Lautoka, Fiji.
As part of a plea deal, Umarji traveled from Fiji to be sentenced in New Zealand. In December 2023, he appealed the initial sentence, leading the judge to reduce it due to his return to the country to confront the legal system. Justice Laura O’Gorman replaced the four-year sentence with a three-year and six-month term.
Geordie Cassin, the communications manager for the New Zealand Parole Board, confirmed to The Fiji Times that Umarji recently appeared before the Parole Board. However, he did not disclose the result of the hearing, stating that the decision would be made public within ten days.