Cameroonian student sentenced to 9 years in prison for drugs

A foreign national has been sentenced to 9 years in prison by a TRNC court after he was found guilty of drug charges.

The judgement was delivered on Friday last week by Lefkosa High Criminal Court.

The defendant, named only as GABA, a Cameroonian student was arrested along with 7 other people during an operation tagged 'Operation Claw' carried out by narcotics police in November, 2020.

Delivering the judgement, the lead judge said that the defendant was tried for drug possession crimes that took place in Kyrenia, Lefkosia and Famagusta.

He stated that the defendant had 12 kilos of jute-type drugs in his possession for a long time.

The judge stated that in the same operation, the mother of the defendant's 2-year-old child was also caught and put on trial.

She has been sentenced to 5 years in prison.

The judge noted that they evaluated all the facts while imposing a sentence on the defendant, and said that they considered it against him for luring the mother of his child into crime and for keeping a large amount of drugs, such as 12 kilos.

Referring to the prevalence of drug crimes, the judge noted that deterrent and exemplary punishments should be given to those who commit such crimes and announced that they sentenced the defendant to 9 years in prison.

What happened?

A total of 7 Cameroonian students, three of whom are women, were arrested on November 11, 2020, in a simultaneous drug operation jointly organized by the Güzelyurt Police Department and Narcotics teams in Lefke, Kyrenia, Lefkosa and Famagusta.

Turkish Cypriot police seized over 16 kilos of a cannabis-based substance in two simultaneous sting operations organised by narcotic teams in Kyrenia and Gemikonağı.

At the time of the report, this is a record weight of drugs seized to date by special teams who had been tipped off by another police authority.

Police said they found that the drugs were brought into the country from Ercan Airport on 28 October.