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.