Maldives’ Juvenile Court sentenced a 16-year-old Maldivian boy and a 16-year-old girl to 16 years in prison for smuggling 1.5 kilograms of cannabis into the country.[1] On 30 November 2009, customs officers at Malé International Airport searched the luggage of the girl, who had just arrived from Trivandrum with another woman.[1] Officers found the cannabis wrapped in a new bed sheet in her suitcase, and the girl handed it over and told them she had more hidden inside her body.[1]

The court counted 1.5 kilograms of cannabis in total with her, and police tests on the substances from her luggage and body found THC, the active ingredient in cannabis.[1] Three police officers told the court that the positive THC test was valid.[1] Police then ran a special operation to find the intended recipient, leaving the girl and the woman in a guest house, and arrested the boy when he came there to collect the drugs.[1] The boy was charged in the Juvenile Court with helping to smuggle illegal drugs into the country and with possessing illegal drugs with intent to distribute them.[1] The state’s charges said the girl travelled from Trivandrum to Malé with another woman on Indian Airlines on 30 November 2009, and that the drugs had been carried in her body as well as in two new bed sheets.[2] The investigation report put 421.3145 grams of tetrahydrocannabinol and 94.5593 grams of cannabinol in one of the sheets and 371.6961 grams of tetrahydrocannabinol and 87.1478 grams of cannabinol in a piece of stiff paper in another.[2]

Both minors were prosecuted under the old Drug Act, because the constitution says the penalty for a crime should be fixed by the law in force when the crime was committed.[1] The girl pleaded not guilty but told the court the incident had taken place, after which the state felt no need to present further evidence, and she was convicted on her statement and other evidence.[2] The boys’ defence, that he went to the guest house to rescue a kidnapped person and took the bag as a birthday present, was rejected because the court found his actions did not match it.[2] The court said the woman who travelled with the girl was also arrested in the case, and her trial was continuing in the Criminal Court.[1]