Death sentence for heroin smuggler

Abu Dhabi // A drug trafficker who smuggled 8kg of heroin inside DVD, CD and video players was sentenced to death yesterday. MK, 22, an Afghan, was found guilty by the Abu Dhabi Criminal Court of First Instance of smuggling, possession and trafficking. Anti-narcotics police were tipped off that MK was selling heroin in Abu Dhabi while living in Dubai.

Prosecutors said he sold 5.5kg of heroin to an undercover officer in Abu Dhabi on June 16. He confessed to police he had the rest of the drug in a hotel room in Dubai. M K had told the court his father had cancer and was promised 500,000 Pakistani rupees (Dh21,000) if he took a "package" from Afghanistan to a person in Abu Dhabi. He confessed that a person in Afghanistan, identified as Samiriali, gave him three cardboard boxes and asked him to deliver them to the UAE.

A policeman at an Afghanistan airport said the boxes contained an illegal substance and he should not take them out of the country, M K said. Samiriali gave the officer 2,500 rupees, he told prosecutors. Upon arrival at Dubai International Airport, he went to a hotel. Samiriali called him and told him to buy screwdrivers to open 51 electronic devices. "When I arrived here, the man [in Afghanistan] called me and told me it was heroin and asked me to deliver it to a person in Abu Dhabi," MK said.

The delivery to the policeman took place outside a hotel in Abu Dhabi in the undercover officer's car. When the officer asked where the drug was, MK said it was inside a suitcase in a CD player. The drug was supposed to be sold to the policeman for US$60,000 (Dh220,000) but police said MK took US$48,000 and told the officer to keep the remainder. MK's defence lawyer said police had arrested him based on an unreliable investigation. The lawyer also said the prosecutors' procedures were incorrect because "they did not ask the translator who was allegedly present when the drug was delivered to the policeman".

The court ruled MK's confession to prosecutors had been adequately detailed and convincing. He also confessed to receiving US$48,000 from the policeman. @Email:[e-mail]