Man sentenced to 8 years in prison for transporting illegal narcotics

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld a January State Security Court (SSC) ruling sentencing a man to eight years in prison after convicting him of transporting illegal narcotics in October 2022.

The court declared the defendant guilty of possessing and transporting illegal narcotics that were hidden in a wooden bed with the intent of transporting them to a neighbouring country on Oct. 13.

The SSC handed the defendant a 10-year prison term for the charges and ordered him to pay JD10, 000 in fines.

However, the court decided to reduce the sentence to eight years in prison while maintain the JD10, 000 “to give the defendant a second chance in life”.

Court documents said the defendant handed a taxi driver a wooden bed and asked him to deliver it to a man in Irbid.

“The taxi driver became suspicious and headed to a border crossing where he asked Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) officers stationed there to examine the bed,” court papers said.

The AND officers placed the bed in an x-ray machine and detected pills, the court maintained. 

“The officers counted 21,000 illegal pills and arrested the defendant as a result,” court papers added.

The defendant confessed to AND officers that he wanted to smuggle the illegal pills to a neighbouring country, the court maintained.

However, the defendant contested the SSC’s ruling through his lawyer, who stated that his client “retracted his confessions and maintains his innocence”.

Meanwhile, the SSC prosecution office asked the higher court to uphold the sentence and the fine imposed on the defendant.

The higher court maintained that the SSC had followed the proper procedures in issuing the sentences against the defendant.

“It was clear to the court that the defendant confessed willingly to possessing the illegal narcotics with the intent of exporting them to a neighbouring country,” the higher court said.

The Cassation Court bench comprised judges Yassin Abdullat, Hammad Ghzawi, Qassem Dughmi, Nayef Samarat, and Mohammad Khashashneh.