Drug dealer gets death
Drug dealer gets death
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post, Tangerang
The Tangerang district court sentenced to death a Pakistani
man on Wednesday for smuggling 1,050 grams of heroin from
Pakistan into the country.
Presiding judge M. Soleh Mokoginta said defendant Muhammad
Abdul Hafeez, 32, was proven guilty of attempting to smuggle the
drug through Soekarno-Hatta International Airport on June 26.
The judge said he had rejected the lawyer's argument that the
defendant had been forced to bring the drug to Indonesia because
he was suffering from economic difficulties.
Wearing a white sports shirt and dark jeans, the defendant, a
father of a 16-month-old baby, said he would follow the advice of
his lawyer, Husien Tuhuteru, who insisted on appealing to a
higher court.
"I accept the punishment, but let me think about my lawyer's
advice on whether or not to appeal to a higher court within one
week," Hafeez told The Jakarta Post.
The defendant was arrested minutes after he had arrived by
Pakistan Airlines flight PIA 896, which landed at the airport on
June 26 this year.
According to prosecutor Ferri Silalahi, customs and excise
officer Donny Dumpang Harahap was suspicious, as the defendant
only had hand-carried luggage with him, despite the long-haul
flight.
Donny then told another officer, Yudi Darma Nauli, to search
the defendant's blue bag. When the defendant was ordered to
reveal the contents of his bag, the officers found three packets
wrapped neatly in the folds of a jacket.
The defendant said the packets contained Pakistani special
food. To convince the officers, the defendant then opened one of
the packets, containing popcorn-like pieces, and immediately
tasted two of them.
When tested, however, the food was found to contain heroin.
Hafeez later testified that he had bought the heroin from a
man named Amin Khan in Peshawar for US$1,000.
Earlier this year the district court sentenced to death three
Nigerians, a Nepalese and a Zimbabwean for drug smuggling, while
a Malawian was given life imprisonment, also for a similar drug
offense in September this year.
Last year, the district court passed the death sentence on
nine defendants, including three Indonesians.