DAMMAM, 27 June 2006 — A corrupt officer at a Dammam prison was caught on Saturday smuggling large quantities of drugs into the facility to distribute to inmates, Al-Watan newspaper reported yesterday.
Prison authorities received a tip-off on the officer’s activities several days ago. Capt. Ali Al-Qahtani, an official at the jail, said prison authorities had been monitoring the officer and on Saturday he was seen taking a package from a driver just outside the prison.
Guards identified the car to be one that had previously been used by a drug dealer who threw packets containing drugs over prison walls for inmates to collect.
Guards searched the officer, who had incidentally not completed his probationary period, and found that he had hidden a packet containing tablets in his underwear. The officer was taken into custody and laboratory tests confirmed the tablets to be the illegal Captagon.
Last year, an official at the same jail was convicted and jailed for three years for bringing drugs into the prison. The official would supply the drugs to a prisoner to distribute them among drug addicts in the prison.
Drug traffickers find jails highly profitable places to operate especially because many of the inmates become vulnerable having been kept in mentally straining conditions for long periods. Prison authorities regularly conduct spot checks and keep informers among inmates to identify corrupt officers.
