Ghanaian gets 20 years for heroin trafficking

JAKARTA (JP): The Central Jakarta District Court handed down yesterday a 20-year jail term to a Ghanaian for smuggling 600 grams of heroin worth more than Rp 400 million (US$181,181).

Presiding Judge Nurhayati said the court found Ibrahim Seibu, 28, guilty of smuggling heroin into Indonesia in September last year by hiding it in the soles of his shoes.

The judge said the defendant and his friend Mustafa Abdu Ganiwu were arrested by police at a Central Jakarta hotel.

Police had earlier said the two were wanted for being members of an international drug syndicate operating in Bangkok, Medan and Jakarta.

The court sentenced Mustafa to 18 years jail in June.

"What made things worse is that the defendant escaped from the police detention center for four months," the judge said.

Ibrahim escaped in October last year and was caught again in April this year.

Defense lawyer Saut Sianturi had told the court police re- arrested the wrong man. "They have misidentified the defendant as Ibrahim Seibu."

Nurhayati said it was Ibrahim who was wanted by the police. She cited a police captain's testimony that the man wanted had knees darker than the rest of his body.

"We have already asked the defendant to open his trousers in order to see his knee's skin color. And no doubt he was the man wanted ," she said.

After the verdict, Ibrahim, who did not speak Indonesian, said "I did not understand the verdict because the judge read the verdict very fast and there was no time for the interpreter to translate it for me."

He and his lawyers said he would appeal. (07)