12-year prison term upheld for man over drug possession

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a January State Security Court (SSC) ruling sentencing a man to 12 years in prison for possessing illicit drugs in Amman in August 2018.

The SSC had declared the defendant guilty of the charge of possessing 248,000 Captagon pills on August 6, and sentenced him to 15 years in prison and ordered him to pay JD12,000 in fines.

However, the court decided to reduce the prison term to 12 years to give the defendant “a second chance in life”.

The court said that the defendant, and three other men who were also tried in this case but did not appeal their verdicts, were known drug dealers.

The defendants decided to smuggle illegal pills to a neighbouring country and approached a truck driver to help them, court papers said.

“The defendants were in possession of a large stash of illegal pills and gave the truck driver 238,000 Captagon pills to hide it in his vehicle,” the court papers said.

The main defendant, who appealed his verdict, kept 10,000 Captagon pills in his office, the court maintained.

In the meantime, Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel received a “tip-off about the smuggling plan and managed to arrest the defendants before the smuggling operation was carried out,” according to court papers.

The court added that upon examining the pills, it was determined that they were illegal narcotics and “DNA traces belonging to the main defendant were found on the bags that were stashed in the truck”.

The SSC attorney general had asked the higher court to uphold the sentence against the defendant, stating that the court had abided by the proper legal procedures when sentencing the defendant.

The defendant, through his lawyer, contested the interrogation procedures and stated that “the SSC failed to examine some evidence provided by the defence”.

The lawyer also argued that the SSC did not follow the proper procedures and relied on weak evidence when sentencing the defendant.

However, the higher court ruled that the SSC had followed the proper procedures and the defendant deserved the "reduced punishment he had received for his offence".

"The defendant confessed to the charges willingly and the criminal lab results indicated that the substances found in the defendant’s possession were illegal in addition to the DNA evidence that linked the defendant to the illegal narcotics," the Court of Cassation said in its ruling.

The Court of Cassation bench comprised judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Yassin Abdullat, Bassem Mubeidin and Nayef Samarat.