The Federal Court of Appeal in Abu Dhabi upheld the acquittal of a second defendant on two charges of possessing narcotics and psychotropic substances with intent to traffic, after Sharjah police caught him picking up a hashish wrap at a watched site.[1] It also upheld a three-month jail term for using a psychotropic substance and rejected the prosecution appeal that sought convictions on both trafficking charges.[1]
The case began in January 2024, when the Sharjah Anti-Narcotics Department was told that a man was using drugs and promoting them for money.[1] After a prosecution warrant, officers arrested him near a shop with a bag holding a yellow wrap of suspected hashish weighing 1,085 grams including the wrap.[1] At his home they seized a crystalline substance suspected to be crystal methamphetamine, three electronic scales and tools bearing dark residue, plus items suspected of being used to prepare and use drugs.[1] In custody he took a call from a man in Pakistan named in the file as Shaheen, who asked him to leave drugs at a mapped point, photograph them and send the picture on WhatsApp so someone in the country could collect them.[1] Officers put a wrap of 559.60 grams of hashish, cut from the seizure, at the point in Al Nahda and watched it.[1] Early that morning the second man stepped from his vehicle, picked up the wrap and was arrested; a shisha suspected of drug use was in the vehicle.[1] A forensic laboratory found the first man’s seizures included 1,091.1 grams of narcotics linked to Indian hemp, the local term for cannabis, and 2.9 grams of methamphetamine.[1] Urine tests showed both men had used methamphetamine.[1]
Prosecutors sent both men to trial for possession with intent to traffic and for use.[1] The first-instance court sentenced the first defendant in his absence to life imprisonment for the linked trafficking charges and three months for use.[1] It sentenced the second, who was present, to three months for use and acquitted him of both trafficking charges.[1] On the prosecution’s appeal he appeared by video with his lawyer, admitted use and denied the rest.[1] The appeal court said picking up the wrap, a methamphetamine test and a shisha in the car pointed to buying for use, not sale or promotion, and that the investigation had focused on the first defendant.[1] It said a witness claim that the second man would divide the drug to sell it was not enough on its own, because trafficking penalties can reach death or life imprisonment.[1] It upheld the judgment and ordered him to pay the appeal fees.[1]