Cairo Criminal Court adjourned retrial proceedings for 38-year-old defendant Sameh S. to 11 November so he can attend from custody.[1] The prosecution had referred him to criminal trial on a charge of attempting to smuggle hashish out of the country without licences from the competent authority.[1] Investigators said the female passenger who carried the drugs had received them from him to take abroad without knowing they contained narcotics, while he intended to smuggle them out of the country.[1]

The case emerged while a passenger-security officer and a criminal-investigation officer were securing passengers boarding a flight to an Arab country at Cairo airport.[1] X-ray screening showed opaque objects in one passenger bag, and a search found eight pieces of hashish hidden inside a bag of frozen meat, weighing 164 grams.[1] The chemical laboratory confirmed the seized items were eight pieces of hashish listed in the first schedule of the drug-control law.[1] The court had previously sentenced him in absentia to 15 years of aggravated imprisonment and a fine of 50,000 Egyptian pounds.[2]