Five-year prison for Thai drug smuggler

The First High Criminal Court yesterday sentenced a Thai masseur, who attempted to smuggle drugs into the Kingdom by hiding it in his body cavity, to five years imprisonment and fined him BD3,000. The 51-year-old received an additional one-year imprisonment sentence for engaging in male prostitution.

The defendant will be deported once he completes the sentence. The verdict was announced after the case was adjourned several times by the judges this year. Court files show that the man was arrested last March at Bahrain International Airport upon his arrival from Bangkok with 218 grams of methamphetamine, a drug that’s commonly known as Shabu, hidden in a sexual protection sheath that was found in his undergarments.

During the interrogation, the man told prosecutors that he bought the substance from Thailand, where it is much cheaper than Bahrain. “I wanted to sell it to some of my customers here, with whom I was regularly having sexual intercourse in return for money.” The defendant told the interrogators that he hid the drugs in his body cavity and removed it upon his arrival to the Kingdom.