DUBAI // A former American soldier who was prescribed Tramadol as a painkiller after being injured, has appealed a seven-year jail sentence for receiving 592 tablets of the drug by courier.
The defendant, J P, was arrested in March after a package containing the pills arrived at customs with his name on it.
Appearing before the Dubai Court of Appeal, his defence lawyer, Saeed Al Ghilani, said the Criminal Court’s verdict should not have found JP, 43, guilty because he did not order the tablets nor did he receive them.
“He took part in the war in Kuwait and was wounded when a bomb exploded, he suffered severe injuries and was left with splinters in his body, he was prescribed Tramadol to control his great pain and then he decided to come to the UAE to look for a job,” the lawyer said.
“When here, he went to a hospital which prescribed him painkillers but his pain was intolerable so during a phone call he told his mother back in the US who visited the health department in the US and got him a supply of nearly three months,” his lawyer told a panel of judges at the appeals court.
Mr Al Ghilani argued that his client, according to UAE law, should not be prosecuted for someone else’s crime.
“Although his mother did not do it knowing it was an illegal act in the UAE, nonetheless she did it, not him, he did not order it and he did not receive it,” Mr Al Ghilani said.
Mr Al Ghilani said his client needs at least six tablets a day to keep manage his pain. He told the court that a customs inspector testified that the tablets were hidden in a professional way as they were covered with cotton inside medicine boxes.
“How is it being hidden if they are inside medicine boxes which we saw many times how they come covered with cotton,” he said. “They were not hidden your honour but were in their original packing which came from the US.”
J P denied a charge of importing the tablets when he appeared at the Dubai Criminal Court last September, however, he was convicted and sentenced to seven years in jail, fined Dh50,000 and ordered to be deported once he completes his jail term. He appealed the sentence.
A verdict is expected by the Court of Appeal on November 30.
salamir@thenational.ae
