ABU DHABI // A man sentenced to four years for drug possession has been cleared by the Appeals Court, which ruled police used incorrect procedures during his arrest.
AT, 30, an Emirati engineer, was convicted by the Criminal Court after police found the drug "Spice", or synthetic cannabis, in his car in April 2012.
But his defence lawyer Dr Eman Al Jaberi argued that as the police inspection of the car took two days after her client's arrest, too much time had elapsed to be certain of the man's guilt.
"Anyone could gave placed the drug in his car during that time... the car should be inspected immediately upon confiscation," she argued.
Dr Al Jaberi added that the public prosecution had not issued the relevant permit for police to carry out the search and that the drug test taken by the man showed such a low percentage of the drug that he could have inhaled it passively.
She also claimed that the case was grudge-driven, saying the person in charge of taking a urine sample had previously threatened to entrap the engineer if he did not offer a job to the sample-taker's wife.
hdajani@thenational.ae
