Dubai: A Canadian UN anti-drug adviser will spend four years in prison for illegally possessing and consuming drugs, a Dubai court ruled yesterday.
The defendant, Herbert Tatham, an international adviser with the Poppy Elimination Programme in Kandahar, Afghanistan, and a consultant with the UN Office on Drugs and Crimes (UNODC), will be deported after serving his term, sentenced the Dubai Court of First Instance.
"We will be appealing the initial ruling soon after we look into the reasons behind convicting our client. He is a person who combats drug crimes. He was in Afghanistan curbing and destroying drugs in order to prevent them from reaching our country and the region," Tatham's lawyer Saeed Al Ghailani, of Saeed Al Ghailani Advocates and Legal Consultants, told Gulf News yesterday.
The Public Prosecution charged the accused with smuggling and possessing 0.6 gm of hashish and two poppy seeds for personal use besides consuming hashish. Presiding Judge Mahmoud Al Sharshabi said the seized drugs will be confiscated upon pronouncing the verdict.
Appeal
Al Ghailani said the court reached this verdict and he will appeal it soon. Tatham has pleaded innocent to the charges.
His lawyer defended: "During the defendant's one-hour transit visit from Kandahar where he was on an anti-narcotics campaign, he was caught at the airport carrying the poppy seeds, which he was taking to Canada for experiments."
Al Ghailani said his client was "illegally questioned in the absence of a legal translator. It was natural that he tested positive for hashish which appeared in his urine test ... he is considered a passive smoker, especially since he collects and burns between five to ten tonnes a day."
