Sunday, October 12, 2008

'Drugs underwear' theory fails to wash with Indian court

An Indian man escaped a possible death sentence for drug trafficking after his lawyer told a court it was impossible to walk with a stash of heroin in his underpants.

Mumbai police alleged Dhirendra Kamdar was carrying two kilograms (4.4 pounds) of the drug in four, 500-gram packets in his underwear when they picked him up as he walked from a guest house to get a taxi to the city's airport.

But when the case came to trial, Kamdar's lawyer Ayaz Khan said it was impossible for anyone to walk one kilometre (0.6 miles) with such an amount of drugs concealed in his smalls.

Khan demonstrated his theory to the judge using four identically-sized bags filled with sugar, and was acquitted of the charge on lack of evidence.

Kamdar allegedly wanted to smuggle the heroin to the United States and had a prior conviction for drug trafficking, which meant he would have been sentenced to death if he had been found guilty a second time.

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