A LAWYER has claimed that the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet in Bahrain compelled her client, an American athlete, to take the blame in an ongoing drugs trial in order to ward off suspicion from a serviceman.
Alya Al Zeera told the High Criminal Court yesterday that personnel from the US Navy had ‘used promises and intimidation’ assuring that the defendant would walk free if he stood trial in place of the naval officer.
The athlete, who played for Bahrain’s national basketball team, has been charged with using marijuana and selling it to residents of the American base in Juffair.
Prosecutors accused the 37-year-old of ordering a drug shipment to an address on the base belonging to a naval officer, which, they allege, was supplied to him by his 44-year-old Eritrean co-defendant.
In pre-trial Public Prosecution interrogations, the athlete admitted to using hashish but denied importing and trading charges.
His alleged female accomplice denied any involvement altogether.
“My client gave a confession based on promises and intimidation from the US base that they would help him get acquitted of all charges if he admitted ownership of the parcel,” Ms Al Zeera told the court.
She went on to claim that the US Navy was protecting the officer, to whom the package was addressed, from being implicated in the case by pinning the blame on her client.
“This was done in an attempt to shift suspicion away from a member of their group and make sure that he was found not guilty of any involvement in the incident.
“The truth is, the naval officer was the one who ordered the package, and the drugs belong to him,” she said, adding that she was sceptical of anyone giving their name, information and address to a complete stranger.
“The defendant only led the officer to a person to purchase drugs from in the US in return for a mere 25g of hashish for personal use.”
However, according to court documents a detective said that the case was opened after receiving a report from the base’s Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) about a suspicious package.
The Bahraini policeman testified that the defendants were caught through a sting operation in a joint effort between the Anti-Narcotics Directorate and US Navy officials.
The naval officer, who was a key witness in the Public Prosecution’s case, denied any knowledge of the drug import or that he knew the defendant at all, during a court hearing last week.
He said that he gave his address to the Eritrean woman, who told him that her friend wanted to purchase basketball supplies.
The serviceman, who works as an IT technician, added that officials at the base, however, intercepted the shipment sent to his name. “I was notified by Navy investigators that a package been confiscated,” he said.
Ms Al Zeera told judges yesterday that the prosecution’s entire account of the events had been provided by the NCIS, and that only one sentence was added by the Bahraini officials.
She further claimed that words had been ‘inserted’ into the Arabic translations of mobile text conversations between the defendant and alleged clients in order to make her client seem guilty.
“They translated words like ‘I want chocolate’ to ‘I want chocolate (marijuana),” she said. Other phrases like ‘green tea’ and ‘trees’ were also used in the conversations.
The main judge responded by saying that these appear to be code words, but she claimed that an American English dictionary presents alternate meanings.
Although the serviceman’s testimony was crucial to the case, he told judges last week that he had not been questioned as part of the prosecution’s investigation. However, he did admit to being part of the NCIS probe.
Meanwhile, the Public Prosecution submitted a formal request to judges that the court should hand out the maximum possible punishment to the defendants, who ‘are the reason our Bahraini youth have been corrupted with the poisons of drugs’.
“Not one speck of mercy should be granted to the two defendants,” the prosecution’s memo read.
Ms Al Zeera pled with the judges to have consideration for her client, reasoning that he is ‘an important and well-known basketball player.’
Judges announced that the verdict would be delivered on May 17.
zainab@gdnmedia.bh
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