Drug dealer fails to reverse jail sentence at higher court

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation upheld a November State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a man to over seven years in prison after convicting him of possessing illegal narcotics in Mafraq governorate in October 2017.

The court declared the defendant guilty of possessing 73,000 Captagon pills with the intent of selling them locally in mid-October and handed him a 15-year prison term.

However, the SSC immediately reduced the sentence to seven-and-a-half-years in prison “because he is young and deserves a second chance in life”, according to court transcripts.

The SCC also ordered the defendant to pay JD10,000 in fines.
Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) agents were informed that the defendant had stashed illegal drugs in his house in Khaldieh town, according to court transcripts.

“A force monitored the defendant’s home then raided it but he managed to escape,” court documents said.

Upon searching the house, the court added, AND operatives found thousands of Captagon pills packed in 70 bags in the house.

The defendant was arrested in July 2018 and sent to the SSC for trial, the court papers added.

The defendant contested the SSC’s ruling, charging that the court failed to examine the investigation procedures and that the “house where the AND agents found the illegal narcotics was not his house”.

Nonetheless, the higher court sustained that the SSC followed the right procedures in the issuance of the sentences against the defendant.

The Court of Cassation judges presiding were Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Yassin Abdullat, Saeed Mugheid and Hamad Ghzawi.