Dubai court tries to find out drug smuggler’s age

A Dubai court has sent a women to be examined to determine her age, after she was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling drugs.

DUBAI // The Dubai Appeals Court has referred a female singer for examination to determine her age after she was sentenced to life in prison for smuggling drugs.

The Nigerian singer told judges she was 18, not 30 as stated in records.

Dubai Criminal Court sentenced her to life in jail then deportation after prosecutors said she sold 1.91 grams of marijuana to a police source.

She knelt before judges at the Appeals Court and cried as she said: “I am only 18 years old, your honour, and it was a friend of mine who asked me to carry a package but I had no idea what it was.”

Prosecutors said that on October 25 last year she tried to sell the drugs to a police source posing as a buyer after police were tipped off about the woman.

An Emirati lieutenant testified that the source agreed to meet with the suspect near a hospital in Abu Hail to buy marijuana for Dh300.

He said that about midnight, she arrived in a taxi and got into the police source’s car. Shortly after, police raided the car and she was arrested.

The court heard that she resisted arrest and tried to escape but a policewoman pinned her down.