Dubai: A salesman who was caught carrying 1,040 banned pills at the Dubai International Airport and claimed to have brought them as medicine for a friend’s father, was cleared of charges on Thursday.
In May, a customs inspector stopped the 29-year-old Indian man at the arrivals terminal and asked to search his luggage.
On having the luggage scanned, the inspector found 700 pills of Pregabalin and 340 pills of Tramadol in the luggage.
On Thursday, the Dubai Court of First Instance acquitted the suspect of smuggling and possessing banned substances after his lawyer Saeed Al Gailani argued that his client brought the pills as a ‘humane favour to a friend’s sick father’.
The man pleaded not guilty and told court that he was not aware that he was carrying a banned medicine.
“I brought those substances, but I did that as a favour to a friend who sent those pills to his sick father in the UAE. I was not aware that the pills are banned,” he told presiding judge Urfan Omar.
Presiding judge Omar said the pills will be seized.
Defending his client, lawyer Al Gailani contended that his client did not have any criminal intention.
“He was not aware of the kind of medicine that his friend had handed him at the airport for his sick father. He brought that medicine as a humane favour. The pills were put inside a closed and wrapped box and he did not know that they were banned … all he knew was that he was doing a good deed,” Al Gailani told the court.
The lawyer submitted to the court a copy of a landmark ruling issued by the Dubai Cassation Court according to which a suspect who carries a ‘wrapped and closed’ parcel without knowing its contents will not be held accountable for what is inside.
“My client has told police and prosecutors that he was aware that he was carrying medicines, but he did not know that they were banned. He did not have criminal intent and we ask the court to acquit him,” Al Gailani concluded in his verbal argument.
The primary ruling remains subject to appeal within 15 days.
