An expatriate heroin user has paid a hefty price for getting hooked on the drug and being enticed to start selling it to help feed his habit.
The Indian man has been jailed for 15 years for selling heroin, four months after he started using the drug.
The 21-year-old was found guilty of dealing drugs by the High Criminal Court yesterday after being arrested for agreeing to sell BD60 worth of heroin to an undercover agent in April in Manama, according to court documents.
“The defendant was arrested red-handed in a sting operation,” read the court ruling. “He denied the charges in court to evade being punished.
“He received drugs from another person, who did not stand trial in this case, due to being unknown to the authorities. He then agreed to give the plainclothes officer 2gm of heroin, before he was arrested.”
The defendant said that he started using drugs only four months before his arrest, when a Pakistani expatriate told him to sell narcotics on his behalf. He said that he was paid BD400 each time he left the drugs in dead drops around the country.
“I did not have a job and I needed the money,” he told prosecutors. “I had just started using heroin and shabu four months before I was arrested for selling it.
“I met a Pakistani man named Hussain and he said that he would give me BD400, if I helped him sell drugs. I was happy because I got a gram of heroin and money, which I could spend. Sometimes, I even took some of the heroin I was supposed to sell.”
The defendant will be deported after completing his sentence. He was also fined BD5,000.
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