An expatriate tailor accused of dealing drugs for BD1 per transaction and playing a distribution role in an international operation will shortly learn his fate at the High Criminal Court.
The 40-year-old Pakistani from Jidhafs has been standing trial on a range of charges relating to the possession and distribution of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, commonly known as shabu, along with the personal use of morphine and shabu, after a chance encounter with a sharp-eyed Bahraini law enforcer.
The court heard that the defendant was stopped at a checkpoint, where an officer from the General Directorate of Verdict Enforcement and Alternative Sentencing was carrying out his duty, and asked to show his CPR as part of inspection procedures.
As the flustered tailor was looking through his bag for his document, the officer spotted ‘something suspicious’ and uncovered a plastic bag filled with a powdery substance. During questioning, the defendant allegedly admitted that the substance was ‘illicit’ and the Anti-Narcotics Directorate was alerted.
A Bahraini officer from the directorate shortly arrived at the scene and arrested the defendant. He further inspected the defendant’s possessions and found BD323 and AED5 in cash, believed to have been the proceeds from drug sales.
The bag also contained five capsules of substances, two plastic bags of powder weighing around 17.5gm, as well as envelopes with a powder weighing about 1.8gm.
Additionally, he found an envelope of a crystalline substance believed to be around 2.2gm of shabu, a number of nylon bags with traces of drugs, a weighing scale, a container of unidentified white powder weighing about 175gm, and a plastic bag of the same white powder, weighing around 129.45gm.
The court was told officers later raided his residence and found glass bottles, two plastic bags filled with 4.41gm of drugs, and an envelope filled with around 1.5gm of heroin.
Further investigations revealed that the defendant was part of a network of people who sold drugs and psychedelic substances in Bahrain, the court heard.
The defendant’s alleged role in that network was to receive the drugs, store them and prepare them for distribution using dead drop locations across the kingdom.
During questioning, the defendant allegedly admitted to receiving drugs a total of three times for distribution. He claimed that he was being paid BD1 per delivery to each dead drop location.
Laboratory tests of the substances that were seized confirmed that the substances were heroin, cocaine, shabu and morphine.
The man has denied in court to distributing drugs, following the network’s instructions, as well as having shabu and morphine for his own personal use, despite an inspection of his phone revealing conversations relating to the sale of the substances, geographic locations, photographs and videos of the substances and locations around Bahrain, and multiple transactions using BenefitPay.
The case continues tomorrow and judges will consider issuing a verdict.
nader@gdnmedia.bh
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