Court rejects final plea by death row convicts

Two defendants convicted of smuggling large quantities of drugs into the Kingdom

Two defendants who are convicted of smuggling large quantities of drugs into the Kingdom from Iran lost their last appeal against the death sentences issued against them earlier.

This comes as the Court of Cassation yesterday rejected the appeals of both defendants and upheld the capital punishment issued against them by the High Criminal Court.

This is the second plea filed by the defendants, who are convicted of smuggling more than 65kg of hashish from Iran through the sea, after they previously appealed against the verdict once before the Supreme Court of Appeal.

As reported by Tribune earlier, the two men were charged with smuggling narcotics with an intention to sell in the Kingdom.

In addition to the capital punishment, the court also fined each of them BD10,000 and fined the first defendant an additional BD10,000 for the possession of unlicensed Thuraya satellite mobile phone.

The court acquitted a third man of the charges levelled against him and ordered the confiscation of seized items.

Court files showed that investigations of the Anti-narcotics Directorate in Interior Ministry revealed that the suspects were members of a narcotics network that gets drugs delivered for trafficking within the country in co-ordination with an Iranian national who delivers the narcotics outside Bahrain’s territorial waters, while the smugglers bring it in through fishing boats.

Following a joint operation between different departments of Interior Ministry; Bahrain Police Aviation in coordination with the Coast Guard, the defendants were arrested with more than 65kg of hashish in their possession.