The Thionville criminal court sentenced 24-year-old Belgian driver Rayhan Syah to 18 months of firm prison for importing, transporting and holding 3.1 kg of cannabis, refusing police orders and driving under the influence of drugs.[1] French customs officers stopped him on 10 August on the A31 at Zoufftgen, near the Luxembourg border.[1] He first ignored the officers’ order to stop, then halted briefly on the hard shoulder while his passenger got out and fled on foot across the motorway.[1] The customs check was then completed at a rest area very close to the border.[1]
Officers found 3.1 kg of cannabis in a bag in the Belgian driver’s car.[1] The driver maintained that the bag belonged to the passenger who fled.[1] He said a stranger met by chance in Belgium had offered him 200 euros to drop him in Metz and that he paid no attention to what he was carrying.[1] He said he did not smell the herbal cannabis because he had himself just smoked a joint.[1] The previously unconvicted defendant repeated that account before the court, while his lawyer criticised the thin one-month investigation and the absence of the escaped passenger.[1] The court kept him in detention after sentencing.[1] It also banned him from driving and from being on French territory for three years.[1] It ordered him to pay a 20,000-euro customs fine, with ten days to appeal.[1]