Man gets ‘second chance’ as court overturns drug trafficking sentence

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has overturned a November State Security Court (SSC) ruling sentencing a young man to over seven years in prison for possessing and trafficking illicit drugs in Amman in November 2016.

The SSC had declared the defendant guilty of the charges and sentenced him to seven and a half years in prison and ordered him to pay JD5,000.

The defendant was originally sentenced to 15 years in prison and was ordered to pay JD10,000 in fines. However, the SSC decided to reduce the sentence and the fine to half “because the defendant was young and deserved a second chance in life”.

Nevertheless, the Court of Cassation decided to overturn the SSC verdict because “the higher court ruled that the SSC did not examine the evidence carefully”, according to court transcripts.

“The SSC also depended on testimonies of the defendants against each other and some of these testimonies were contradictory,” the Court of Cassation ruled.

The Court of Cassation decided to return the case file to the SSC to reexamine the testimonies of the defendants and other evidence in the case.

The court said Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) personnel were informed that a large amount of Captagon pills were hidden in iron drums in Sahab district, court papers said.

On November 14, court papers said, AND agents headed to Sahab and searched a piece of lot that had dozens of iron drums. “Agents found 2,320,000 Captagon pills stashed inside the drums,” read court papers.

Upon investigating the incident, the authorities concluded that the defendant was part of a group who were planning to smuggle the illegal narcotics to a neighbouring country, court transcripts said.

The SSC general attorney had asked the higher court to uphold the sentence against the defendant stating that the court abided by the proper legal procedures when sentencing the defendant.

The defendant, through his lawyer, contested the interrogation procedures and stated that “the SSC failed to examine some evidence that were provided by the defense”.

The lawyer also argued that the SSC did not follow the proper procedures and relied on weak evidence when sentencing the defendant.

The Court of Cassation bench comprised judges Mohammad Ibrahim, Naji Zu’bi, Yassin Abdullat, Hamad Ghzawi and Bassem Mubeidin.