Kuwaiti female acquitted of drug use

21/10/2024

KUWAIT CITY, Oct 21:The Criminal Court, headed by Justice Abdullah Nasser Al-Asimi, acquitted a female citizen of possessing hashish and another psychotropic substance with the intent to consume these substances, as well as assaulting and insulting public employees – Interior Ministry officers.

According to the case file, the incident officer revealed that when he was on duty in Mahboula, he was examining a complaint about a suspicious building and while monitoring the place, he saw the accused coming out of one of the buildings in an abnormal state and unable to take care of herself.

The officer stopped her and asked for her identification card; but she abused and pushed him, trying to take her identification card forcefully. Then, he called the Operations Unit to request for backup. When the backup officers arrived, she insulted them. Attorney Bashar Al-Nassar, lawyer for the accused, pointed out the invalidity of the stop procedure due to the absence of ‘flagrante delicto’ (criminal caught in the act); hence, the invalidity of the measures taken after that. Al-Nassar explained that restriction on personal freedom as a natural human right -- whether the restriction is arrest or search -- is not permissible except in cases of fraud as they are brazen crimes, or with the permission of the Public Prosecution.

“The case of my client is not among them. Simply seeing the accused in a staggering state or abnormal condition does not justify the stop and arrest procedures,” he added. It is also stipulated that for the state of f’lagrante delicto’ to exist, which allows the police officer to arrest and search the accused without permission from the investigating authority, this state must not have been based on an illegal procedure.

By Jaber Al-Hamoud, Inaas Awadh

Al-Seyassah/Arab Times Staff