Drug dealer sentenced to over 3 years in prison

AMMAN — The Court of Cassation has upheld an August 2022 State Security Court (SSC) ruling, sentencing a drug dealer to over three years in prison after convicting him of possessing illegal narcotics in January of last year.

The court declared the defendant guilty of obtaining illegal narcotics with the intent of selling the drugs to an undercover agent on January 3.

The SSC handed the defendant five years in prison for the offence of possessing illegal narcotics and ordered him to pay JD5,000 in fines.

However, the court decided to reduce the fine to JD3,500 and the prison term to three years and four months in prison to give the defendant “a second chance in life”.

Court documents said the Anti-Narcotics Department (AND) learnt the defendant was in possession of illegal narcotics and placed him under surveillance for a couple of weeks.

On January 18, the court maintained, AND agents arrested the suspect.

“The AND agents found 41 Captagon pills, a small amount of crystal meth and hashish on the defendant,” the court documents said.

The defendant contested the SSC’s ruling through his lawyer, who argued that the court “did not provide solid evidence to implicate his client”.

The lawyer also charged that “his client was subjected to torture and duress to confess”, according to the court papers.

Meanwhile, the SSC prosecution office asked the higher court to uphold the sentence and the fine imposed on the defendant.

The higher court maintained that the SSC had followed the proper procedures in issuing the sentence against the defendant.

“It was clear to the court that the defendant confessed willingly to possessing the illegal drugs,” the higher court said.

The Court of Cassation judges presiding were Mahmoud Ebtoush, Nayef Samarat, Qassem Dughmi, Mohammad Khashashneh and Hammad Ghzawi.