Abdulrahman Al-Ali Saudi Gazette JEDDAH – One of the three defendants in Al-Jizawee case has admitted that the third defendant, a Saudi, is innocent of any charges of smuggling narcotics into the Kingdom. During the trial at the General Court in Jeddah on Wednesday, the second defendant, an Egyptian, said that he wrongly implicated his former Saudi employer in the case to settle scores. Egyptian lawyer Ahmad Al-Jizawee, the first defendant, was arrested at Jeddah's King Abdul Aziz International Airport in April this year while attempting to smuggle narcotics into the Kingdom. The defendant confessed during the trial, while presenting his defense against the charges leveled against him. The second defendant, who worked as a driver for the Saudi man, admitted that he lied during investigations, implicating the Saudi so as to draw him into the case. He said the reason was that his former employer had informed the police that he had embezzled SR130,000 and siphoned it off to Egypt while working as his driver. “My charges against the Saudi were incorrect. I wanted to settle scores for him filing a case against me,” he told the court. Al-Jizawee was arrested while trying to smuggle 21,380 Xanax tablets, a controlled medicine containing alprazolam that is classified by Saudi authorities as a narcotic and is sold only under prescription. The pills were stashed inside baby powder containers and wooden boxes alongside copies of the Holy Qur'an. Al-Jizawee entered the Kingdom on an Umrah visa but he was not wearing ihram. Customs officials stopped him and searched his luggage after his behavior roused suspicion. The case was referred to the court after the Bureau of Investigation and Public Prosecution (BIP) studied the charges leveled against Al-Jizawee. During the course of investigation, the second defendant was revealed as an associate of Al-Jizawee in the drug deal. He was arrested while smuggling narcotics from Cairo into the Kingdom. Customs officials seized a total of 3,034 narcotics from his baggage.
