Sisters spared punishment in marijuana case

Hamza M Sengendo, Staff Reporter

DUBAI: A visitor and her sister have been cleared in a marijuana case that saw their countrywoman jailed for to ten years and slapped with a Dhs100,000 fine.

The Cameroonian visitor, 52, and sister –a driver, 30- first appeared at the Dubai Criminal Court on Oct.21.2018 on suspicion they were implicated in smuggling four plastic rolls containing 816.44 grammes of marijuana.

The visitor who was arrested at the Dubai International Airport was charged with bringing them. The driver and compatriot saleswoman, 32, were charged with aiding her to illicitly bring drugs on her way to the UAE. The driver said a woman asked her to tell her sister to collect food items from someone and bring them. The visitor said that the person who gave her the items told her they were chocolates. The saleswoman also denied.

The Criminal Court cleared both sisters and jailed the saleswoman for ten years, fined her and ordered that she be later deported. Prosecutors appealed against both sisters but the Appeals Court upheld their acquittal. An Emirati lieutenant from the Dubai Police Antinarcotics Department narrated that he was on duty at the department when he was tipped about a female visitor who had arrived at the airport with narcotic drugs.

“I went and confronted her about them. She told me her sister, the driver, requested her to bring them after telling her they were edibles. Shortly, the driver arrived with the compatriot saleswoman to receive her. The driver on being questioned said the saleswoman had commissioned her to receive the edibles from the visitor and deliver them to someone in Dubai. And that the visitor had brought them from someone in Ethiopia.

“The saleswoman insisted they were edibles but not narcotics. She opened her phone and showed us a Whatsapp conversation between her and another person containing photos pertaining to the seized alleged edibles.

“We discerned the conversation that was in French and discovered that the person she was chatting with was advising her to hide wanted items within edibles in a secret manner that is difficult for investigators to find.” A female Emirati inspector said, “My colleague manning a baggage scanner detected a suspicious lump in the visitor’s bag. I stopped her, checked the bag and came across four plastic rolls stuffed with a dried marijuana-like herb.

“On questioning her about the contents of the rolls she denied anything to do with the herb and said she did not even know what kind of herb it was or whether it was banned. She said she was carrying food items to her sister.”