A South American transgender woman has been revealed as one of the most notorious solo drugs mules ever to attempt to smuggle illicit substances into Bahrain, the Supreme Criminal Appeals Court heard.
The appellant’s move against a life sentence for an ill-fated bid to bring a ‘staggering amount of drugs’ into the country was turned down.
The 32-year-old and another Brazilian, sentenced in absentia, faces 25 years behind bars for conspiring to import 3.3kg of cocaine with an estimated street value of BD400,000.
In April, the High Criminal Court also fined them BD10,000 each. The appellant was also found guilty of using cocaine and cannabis. It is believed the 25-year-old co-conspirator remains in Brazil and is currently wanted by Interpol.
The court heard that the pair met in São Paulo, where the man persuaded the appellant to fly halfway across the world with a suitcase full of cocaine, paying 17,000 Brazilian Reals (BD1,245) in return.
According to the Public Prosecution, the would-be smuggler arrived in Bahrain on January 2 and a suitcase retrieved was immediately flagged by Customs Affairs officers.
Since the accused could speak neither English nor Arabic, Customs officers used a language translation app to ask if there was anything to declare, and were told ‘no’.
After opening the suitcase, policemen found 36 bags of cocaine – weighing a total of 2.23kg – stuffed in patterned bags tucked between personal items and clothes.
In prosecution questioning, a Portuguese-language interpreter from the Brazilian Embassy translated the accused’s statements denying any knowledge of the contents of the bag.
The court heard that a ‘friend-of-a-friend’ – the co-defendant – passed over the suitcase and instructed that it not be opened under any circumstances.
He bought the traveller a ticket to Bahrain, with a layover in Qatar, and the two-day journey from São Paulo started on December 31. Armed with a visit visa, cocaine and cannabis was later found in the appellant’s body.
The GDN earlier reported that, although the Brazilian traveller appeared as a woman, a medical expert later confirmed that the suspect was ‘biologically male’ despite physical features of an adult woman. A DNA test also revealed that the drugs mule possessed the male XY chromosome.
Despite her biological sex, she was legally recognised as a woman in her home country, with a female gender marker on her documentation. Prosecutors were told that hormone replacement therapy (HRT) had started at the age 13 and that the defendant had lived as a female ever since.
Tried as a man, the appellant will compete the life sentence in a male prison.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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