Dubai: A footballer charged with smuggling 1.8kg of cocaine pleaded not guilty before the Dubai Court of First Instance on Wednesday.
The defendant, from Guinea-Bissau, was transiting through Dubai on his way to Abidjan from Brazil in May when he was detained by a policeman at Dubai International Airport.
Sixteen pouches containing the cocaine were found stitched into the defendant’s underwear.
“I am a professional footballer and play for a club in Brazil. I did not know that the substance I was carrying was a drug. I was transporting a pair of shorts as a favour to a friend,” the defendant told presiding judge Fahd Al Shamsi. “I was training with my club… a friend came to me at the pitch and gave me the shorts. He asked me to take it and give it to his brother in Abidjan.”
The defendant, however, admitted in court that he was aware that the shorts contained some substance. “He [the friend] told me it was a special powder used to clean gold. I am a footballer and have nothing to do with drugs,” he said.
The policeman testified to prosecutors that he suspected the defendant as soon as he walked out of the plane.
“I searched him and found the cocaine hidden in his underwear. He told me that a friend paid him to take the substance to the Ivory Coast,” he said.
The defendant will present a written defence next week.
