Aliens arraigned for Sh9bn drugs

Dar es Salaam. 

Twelve foreigners seized on Wednesday with about 200 kilos of heroin stashed in a ship were yesterday charged with trafficking drugs worth over Sh9 billion.

The four Pakistanis and eight Iranians were not allowed to enter any plea until when the case is taken to the High Court for trial.

The charges were only read before the accused at the Kisutu Resident Magistrate’s Court, which however, has no legal powers to hear the case.

The accused were sent to the court under extraordinarily tight security and spent over an hour at the court’s remand cell before they were led into the court room for charges to be read to them.

The accused -- vessel’s captain Ayoub Hoof Mohamed, Mohamed Rahim, Baksh Mohamed, Fahiz Dauda, Rahim Baksh, Khalid Ally, Abdul Soriad, Adbul Khrbakashi, Saeed Sahiry, Bashir Afraz, Morad Bakshir and Hazir Hazad -- looked exhausted throughout the proceedings.

Senior state attorney Prosper Mwangamila told the court that the accused were on Wednesday arrested trafficking into Tanzania some 200.5 kilos of heroin worth Sh9 billion. Tanzanian anti-narcotics authorities in the early hours on that day intercepted the vessel -- Aldahial, registered in Kunak, Iran -- in the Indian Ocean between Dar es Salaam and Zanzibar.

A special task force dealing with transnational organised crime in Tanzanian waters carried out the midnight operation to seize one of the biggest drug hauls in years.

It comprises members of the anti-drugs unit, marine police, officers from the Navy division of the Tanzania People’s Defence Forces and the Tanzania Intelligence and Security Service.

Head of Anti Drugs Unit Godfrey Nzowa told reporters on Wednesday that the seizure was part of an operation done in collaboration with other organs from the Southern African Development Community (Sadc) member states and other countries from around the world.

Yesterday, prosecution told resident magistrate Nyigulila Mwaseba that the offence was contrary to section 16(1) (b) of the Drugs and Prevention of Illicit Trafficking Drugs Act.

Prosecution then asked for another date as investigations were still going on.

The accused were sent back to custody until February 24 as the offence they are charged with was not bailable.

“A special task force suspected them and subjected them to a thorough search,” Mr Nzowa said. “It was at that time that we impounded a consignment of heroin.”

Police said the arrest came as a result of intelligence information in a joint patrol to curb transnational organised crime in Tanzanian waters.

The last time law enforcers intercepted a huge consignment of narcotics was in 2012, when 211 kilogrammes were seized at Mchinga in Lindi Region.

At the same court yesterday, a Kenyan Abdulahman Salim was charged with trafficking 2.099 kilos of heroin worth about Sh105 million.

He was arrested on January 31, this year at Julius Nyerere International Airport shortly after he disembarked from an Ethiopian Airline flight. He was carrying a total of 141 heroin-filled capsules in his stomach.

He is also remanded in custody until February 18 when his case will be mentioned.

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