Expat drug dealers must be deported: UAE court

Expatriates convicted of drug dealing must be deported from the UAE in line with its penal code which also involves prison terms or the maximum capital punishment, the country’s top court has ruled.

The Federal Supreme Court (FSC) made this clear by rejecting a sentence by a lower court jailing an Arab man convicted of possessing drugs.

The man and two Emiratis had been tried on charges of possessing and taking narcotics and were fined and sentenced to jail terms, prompting the prosecutor to appeal the verdict on the grounds it did not include deportation of the expatriate.

“The FSC made clear that a foreigner convicted in a drug case and sentenced to prison term must also be deported from the UAE because allowing that defendant to stay in the country violates the law,” Emirat Alyoum daily said.

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