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A WELL-KNOWN American basketball player has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for using, importing and selling marijuana to US Navy personnel.
Yesterday, the High Criminal Court fined him BD5,000, and ruled to deport the two-metre-tall athlete after completing his sentence.
The athlete’s Eritrean co-defendant, who was accused of supplying him with the addresses of Fifth Fleet base residents, was acquitted of all narcotic trading charges.
“The court finds that the evidence is not sufficient to convict the second defendant (Eritrean woman),” verdict documents read.
“She has maintained her innocence throughout all stages of the case, including Public Prosecution hearings and police investigations.
“A conviction must be built on a certainty that a defendant did commit the crime and not on the possibility that they may have committed it.”
Prosecutors had accused the 37-year-old of ordering a drug shipment to an address on the base belonging to a naval officer, which they claimed was supplied to him by the 44-year-old Eritrean.
Although the American co-defendant denied selling marijuana, he did admit giving it to friends and acquaintances in return for help with personal matters.
Court documents said that police found marijuana paraphernalia in his apartment, including a pipe and cigarette rolling paper and that traces of the narcotic were detected in his urine sample.
WhatsApp conversations between the defendant and his drugs-using clientele were also reportedly found on his phone.
The female defendant’s lawyer Abdulaziz Al Moosa successfully argued that she had no involvement in the man’s activities and that she was a well-respected hotel manager.
“My client is paid BD500-a-month, she does not need to resort to selling drugs to make money,” he previously told judges.
The American’s lawyer, Alya Al Zeera, insisted that he was ‘set up’ by the Fifth Fleet. The court earlier heard her claims that the US Navy ‘used promises and intimidation’ to make her client take the blame for the incident in order to protect the serviceman to whom the package was addressed.
She also alleged that the prosecution’s account of the incident was entirely based on information provided to them by the base’s Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS).
Ms Al Zeera further accused the prosecution of ‘inserting’ words into translations of the text conversations, which the judge responded were explanations to code words referring to different kinds of hashish.
The Public Prosecution earlier submitted a formal request to judges that the defendants should receive the maximum possible penalty, describing them as ‘the reason our Bahraini youth have been corrupted with the poisons of drugs.’
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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