Dubai: The state security court has sentenced an Imam of a mosque in Amman and another person to three years and four months each in prison after being found guilty of drug trafficking.
They were also fined 3,500 dinars (DH2,590) each for promoting drugs just outside the mosque. Another individual was sentenced to two months for drug use.
According to court’s ruling, which was upheld by the Court of Cassation, the two primary defendants were not just users, but active promoters and distributors of narcotic substances.
Their illicit activities were not confined to secrecy but shockingly conducted right outside the mosque premises, the court records said.
Anti-narcotics officers, acting on a tip-off, arrested the two defendants - one outside the mosque, and the other in the imam’s residence. The duo was caught red-handed selling crystal meth and Captagon pills, raking in a total of 830 dinars per sale.
The investigations led the officers to an insider, who had initially contacted the first defendant with a request to buy crystal meth and Captagon pills.
The Imam himself called the insider source, inviting him and his friend, who was interested in purchasing the drugs, to the mosque.
Unbeknownst to the Imam, this friend was, in fact, an undercover anti-narcotics officer.
The subsequent visit to the mosque led to the dramatic arrest of the defendants, who were immediately transferred to the judiciary to face their legal consequences.
