Informer who framed foe gets 10 years

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter 

An informer embroiled in enmity with his acquaintance framed him in a narcotics peddling case. He and a drug dealer were jailed for ten years on Thursday.

The Asian defendant, 29, deceived police that the Asian acquaintance who stayed within his neighbourhood in the International City had Hashish he had agreed to sell to an undercover cop for Dhs1, 000, records showed.

Police arrested the defendant and his countryman, 25, after discovering that they possessed with the intention of peddling four plastic rolls stuffed with 3,662.6kg of heroin, the Dubai Criminal Court heard on Feb.18.

They denied the heroin possession charge. The defendant denied providing misleading information to cops. The court found them guilty, jailed them for ten years plus deportation and fined each one Dhs50, 000. In prosecution records, at around 10pm on Dec.16 last year the defendant alerted an antinarcotics department the Asian man had hashish for sale and had agreed to meet with the possible buyer near a Chinese market.

Cops rushed to the scene and met the defendant. He told them the man would come in five minutes to pick up hashish from the area and sell it. Before cops could take positions he pointed them to a plastic bag near a parking lot.

“I asked him about its contents,” said a lieutenant who took part in the arrest, “He told me it contained heroin. I checked and came across a heroin-like substance. The wanted man arrived at around 10:50pm. We arrested him.”

A corporal frisked him and found he had no illegal item. A sergeant asked him the reason he came. He said the defendant contacted and summoned him for a meeting. He denied any idea about or connection with the heroin.

The defendant looked scared and perplexed. A sergeant confronted him. He confessed to have been the one who tossed the bag there under directives from the countryman who was by then in detention over a drugs case.

He revealed the countryman contacted and tasked him with dropping the plastic bag containing heroin for a recipient who would come to pick it but the recipient did not come. The defendant thought of how to get rid of it.

The sergeant demanded the reason he chose the Asian man as a mean to dispose of the heroin. The defendant revealed he targeted him on grounds of a previous enmity. Police learnt had a heroin stash at his flat. They seized it in a backpack. He revealed the countryman tasked him with hawking it.