A BAHRAINI driver accused of attempting to smuggle 200,000 Captagon pills into Saudi Arabia, by concealing them in a spare tyre, has been found guilty of using drugs in the neighbouring country.
The 30-year-old was reportedly arrested while trying to get the pills past the Saudi land border, and was sentenced to prison there, though the duration was not specified in court documents.
Although he has already been convicted, he is also standing trial in Bahrain’s High Criminal Court, alongside a Saudi man and another Bahraini, whose orders he was allegedly following.
According to the defendant’s attorney, he is currently in the process of appealing his guilt in Saudi Arabia’s court system, but neither the court nor the jurisdiction was specified.
The three men are on trial on charges of possessing and exporting drugs with an intent to sell it and make a profit.
Although the 30-year-old Bahraini successfully passed customs on the Bahraini side of the King Fahad Causeway, he was reportedly caught on the Saudi side.
According to the chief investigator in the case, the defendants were arrested after the Anti-Narcotics Directorate was informed by its counterpart in Saudi Arabia about the alleged smuggling scheme.
The detective claimed his investigations revealed that a 31-year-old Bahraini was in touch with a man in Saudi, who arranged the smuggling, and asked his ‘operatives’ in Bahrain to do his bidding.
Officers requested a warrant from Public Prosecution to arrest the older defendant and search his residence.
The suspect admitted to being connected to the mysterious Saudi defendant, and said he was going to be paid BD1,000 for smuggling the amphetamines across the border.
He claimed that he receives narcotics on behalf of the Saudi, stores them and then prepares them for transportation into the neighbouring country via their other co-defendant, who hands them to the Saudi man.
After hiding a large number of pills inside a spare tyre, he admitted to placing it in the 30-year-old’s car.
An officer claimed that the trio was part of an organised network of drug dealers, who import narcotics into Saudi Arabia via Bahrain, through highly-technical and creative means, which makes the process 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 belonged to him.
Court files stated that the information-sharing between the two authorities 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 ‘take measures to reconcile legislative texts and coordinate legal systems’.
Saudi authorities also reportedly confirmed through lab analyses that the pills contain amphetamines.
Captagon is a mix of amphetamines, also known as the ‘poor man’s cocaine’.
The court is likely to receive more information about the defendant’s conviction in upcoming hearings, and whether or not he will be tried again in Bahrain on the same charges.
The defence is set to be heard on September 8.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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