Absence of translator forces court to adjourn drug trial

Dubai: A Columbian man facing charges of transporting four kilograms of cocaine while in transit failed to respond in court as there was no Spanish translator for him to enter his plea.

Prosecutors accused the 40-year-old merchant, V.A., of attempting to transport in transit cocaine from Sao Paolo, in Brazil, to Quanzhou, in China, via Dubai.

Due to the communication problem, the suspect failed to understand the charges read out by Presiding Judge Al Saeed Mohammad Barghout.

According to court records, the defendant admitted that a Brazilian person named Dario met him in Sao Paolo and asked him to transport the cocaine to Quanzhou via Dubai.

The suspect was quoted admitting that Dario paid him $8,000 (around Dh29,384) for travel expenses and promised to pay him a similar amount after delivering the drugs.

An Emirati policeman at Dubai airport testified that the metal detecting machine sounded when the suspect passed through the transit terminal.

"The defendant turned pale when I asked him to return and pass through the machine a second time& then he pretended that he didn't hear me when I asked to search him.

"Thereafter, I walked him to the search room and discovered that he hid something at his waste. At first he refused to be searched [but] we found that he hid 113 pieces of cloth containing what we suspected to be drugs... knitted to the inside of his trouser," the policeman said.

The policeman alerted the anti-narcotics department. According to preliminary investigations, the suspect was carrying cocaine which he claimed to have collected from Dario. He said he was supposed to transport the drugs to China.

Judge Barghout adjourned the case until a Spanish translator could be found.