Woman gets 10 years in jail for possessing drugs

Ehab Atta, Staff Reporter

A European woman was sentenced to 10 years in jail to be followed by deportation and fined Dhs50,000 on charges of importing and possessing 307 electronic cigarettes containing cannabis via a UAE airport.

Official records reveal that the convict was caught by the customs inspectors with a plastic box containing 228 electronic cigarette filters of sticky liquid of extracted cannabis, 78 plastic envelopes containing 79 electronic cigarette filters, the total weight of which was four kilogrammes. A plastic box containing 1.4 kilogramme of cocaine was also seized in her possession after she was suspected while completing her arrival procedures at the airport.

Hassan Matar, the defendant’s lawyer, said he would appeal the sentence on the grounds that his client did not know she was carrying narcotics that were illegal in the country. Also the narcotics that the customs inspectors seized were visible and not hidden in her suitcases.

In another development, the Dubai Criminal Court on Wednesday heard the case in which two Asians were accused of possessing and peddling drugs. The defendants were caught with around 82,000 narcotic tablets.

According to the official records, a Dubai police major testified they received a tip-off from the General Department of Anti-narcotics that a defendant was possessing narcotics for peddling.

After searching the defendant’s house, the police found 82,000 narcotic tablets. The second defendant happened to be in the house and looked scared and confused.

When asked about the source of the narcotics, the first defendant said his job was limited to receiving narcotics from two other defendants who were at large. He would deliver them to a third person after receiving instructions from these defendants against a sum of money.

The defendant added that he had done so several times before and the last was in March.