British Man, 21, Faces Death in UAE

It isn't a justifiable law in the UAE.

The irony is we'd hear nothing about it if it wasn't some lobotomised idiot with a British passport who had run foul of it.
 
dowie said:
I don't think anyone has said that what he did was a good idea - you'll find that everyone has said it is pretty stupid....

I've got some sympathy for him - he's facing a ridicules sentence for what is a relatively minor act in real terms - how do we even know he's not himself a victim of entrapment - yes he'd still have to be dumb enough to agree to commit the crime after being enticed but I wouldn't have too much confidence in the local police on this.... for all we know any of the 4 people mentioned in the article could have been the source of the drugs and any of the others could have been charged as a result of introducing that person to the undercover cop. This is the same country that arrested a tourist over a poppy seed found in the treat of his shoe.....
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I think many of the laws that the Arabic countries have are bizarre and over the top as well. You can find yourself in hot water for what are comparatively small things... I'd sympathise with some people in these situations.

Drug dealing isn't one of those situations though, the person was likely doing it to make more money, they're risking their life and they could end up paying the price. Tough luck.
 
RomanNose said:
It says in the article, or is that talking about the 19 year old? Wording is poor.
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Yeah but how do you/they know that all he sold was 20g? He may have sold 2kg before? Yes it is harsh but he knew the rules and he still risked it so who is to blame here? If they start letting people off how can you call it a law then? Law is meant to be the same for eveyone
 
From our point of view, its a ridiculous sentence for what we see as a petty crime...In a country with very little drug use and related crime, it is seen in a very different light.

Lets remember that we all have the benefit of living in an 'enlightened' state with regard to drugs. Its easy for us to say its nothing..In their country, its not just flogging a plant, its about protecting and maintaining a cultural and societal rule.

I dont agree with the death penalty although i don't think someone so monumentally stupid will be missed :o
 
Given that Keith Brown was jailed for four years for having a 0.003g trace on the bottom of his shoe... trying to sell what might not even be considered a large amount in this country, certainly is considered so over there.

I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, but at the end of the day, he committed what is considered a serious crime in a foreign country, so he has to deal with the consequences.
 
Well I'm not so confident that I'd accept on face value that he's completely guilty here without further details of the case. Entrapment resulting in a one off naive act as a go between in his compound is quite possible in a situation like this and its really not too much of a stretch to suppose that its possible this could have been a complete stitch up.
 
grudas said:
Yeah but how do you/they know that all he sold was 20g? He may have sold 2kg before? Yes it is harsh but he knew the rules and he still risked it so who is to blame here? If they start letting people off how can you call it a law then? Law is meant to be the same for eveyone
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It's still incredibly stupid for him to be killed, don't know what the best cause of action would be but it would be a good start to not kill him and just get a small sentence.
 
I'm 100% anti drugs, would never do them, even alcohol is terrible.

My stance on drugs has led me to now believe that ALL drug use should be decriminalised, and ALL 'recreational drugs' should be available for purchase in licensed stores.

Pretty odd that isn't it? Such decriminalization and availabilty will put an end to the vast majority of illegal drug trafficking and crime, and such drug legalisation has already been done in Portugal, and several years later there are far far fewer people doing hard drugs, and many many more people entering drug rehabilitation therapy to cure their addiction.

Funny that the best proven way to REDUCE drug use in a society is to fully legalize it, and strengthen discussion, education, and apply a tolerant attitude towards drug use. We follow the US method for almost everything, and we couldn't be doing it more wrong by doing that as opposed to looking to other European countries for much better and proven, effective solutions.
 
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Nexus said:
I'm not a supporter of the death penalty, but at the end of the day, he committed what is considered a serious crime in a foreign country, so he has to deal with the consequences.
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totally disagree - we should now be applying a bunch of pressure on the UAE to reverse the decision and if they refuse and choose to execute one of our citizens then there ought to be consequences for them to deal with of an economic/diplomatic nature
 
grudas said:
Yeah but how do you/they know that all he sold was 20g? He may have sold 2kg before? Yes it is harsh but he knew the rules and he still risked it so who is to blame here? If they start letting people off how can you call it a law then? Law is meant to be the same for eveyone
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Even in a state like UAE you should only be convicted for what you have actually done. He might have murdered 26 people and eaten them, but he hasn't been caught for that so it can hardly be material.
 
bhavv said:
I'm 100% anti drugs, would never do them, even alcohol is terrible.

My stance on drugs has led me to now believe that ALL drug use should be decriminalised, and ALL 'recreational drugs' should be available for purchase in licensed stores.

Pretty odd that isn't it? Such decriminalization and availabilty will put an end to the vast majority of illegal drug trafficking and crime, and such drug legalisation has already been done in Portugal, and several years later there are far far fewer people doing hard drugs, and many many more people entering drug rehabilitation therapy to cure their addiction.

Funny that the best proven way to REDUCE drug use in a society is to fully legalize it, and strengthen discussion, education, and apply a tolerant attitude towards drug use.
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I don't think portugal has allowed licensed stores though.
I will need to check that.
 
grudas said:
Yeah but how do you/they know that all he sold was 20g? He may have sold 2kg before? Yes it is harsh but he knew the rules and he still risked it so who is to blame here? If they start letting people off how can you call it a law then? Law is meant to be the same for eveyone
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How do you know he's even sold anything before - how do you know he wasn't say approached by someone he thought was a young arab, in his compound, asking if he can hook him up and said erm not me personally mate but I can introduce you to my Syrian mate... then the pair of them get busted.

just pointing out that with these sorts of police forces entrapment is very possible too (not saying it did happen that way)

All we know if that an arab court has found him guilty - that in itself doesn't really tell us much about what he actually did or didn't do.
 
dowie said:
totally disagree - we should now be applying a bunch of pressure on the UAE to reverse the decision and if they refuse and choose to execute one of our citizens then there ought to be consequences for them to deal with of an economic/diplomatic nature
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Umm your joking right? Lol
 
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