Three men – two Bahrainis and a Saudi – have been sentenced to five years in prison each for attempting to smuggle 200,000 Captagon pills into Saudi Arabia by concealing them inside a spare tyre.
One of the Bahraini defendants was arrested while trying to get the pills past the Saudi land border and was earlier sentenced to 20 years behind bars by a Saudi court.
On appeal, the penalty was reduced to 15 years. It is not known whether the 30-year-old Bahraini driver will have to serve an additional five years once he returns to Bahrain.
On the Bahraini side of the proceedings, the High Criminal Court found the three defendants guilty of possessing and exporting an amphetamine with intent to sell it and make a profit.
The court heard that, although the 30-year-old Bahraini successfully passed customs on the Bahraini side of the King Fahad Causeway, he was caught in the act on the Saudi side.
His two co-defendants, whose orders the driver was reportedly following, were arrested after the Anti-Narcotics Directorate was informed by its equivalent in Saudi about the smuggling scheme.
According to the chief investigator in the case, the 31-year-old Bahraini was in contact with a man in Saudi Arabia who arranged the smuggling operations and instructed his ‘operatives’ in Bahrain to do his bidding.
Officers requested a warrant from Public Prosecution to arrest the older defendant and search his residence, and he admitted to being connected to the mysterious Saudi defendant.
He told authorities that he was going to be paid BD1,000 for smuggling the amphetamines across the border, and that he hid a large number of pills inside a spare tyre then placed it in the 30-year-old’s car.
He stated that he received narcotics, stored and prepared them for transportation via his co-defendant, who handed them to the Saudi man.
An officer claimed that the three Bahrainis were part of an organised network of drug dealers, who import narcotics into Saudi Arabia through Bahrain using highly-technical and creative means, that made the smugglings difficult to detect.
Part of the investigation in the case was carried out by the Saudi Arabian Public Prosecution, who provided prosecutors with information, including the driver’s confession that the car belongs to him.
Court files stated that the information-sharing between the two bodies was enabled and facilitated through the 1983 Riyadh Arab Agreement for Judicial Co-operation.
The agreement stipulates that Arab nations, who signed the accords, “shall regularly exchange the texts of legislations” and “shall take measures to reconcile legislative texts and co-ordinate legal systems”.
Saudi authorities also reportedly confirmed through lab analyses that the pills contain amphetamines.
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