KUWAIT CITY, Mar 4: A high-profile drug-smuggling case shook the legal community today as the Criminal Court handed down a life sentence to a well-known lawyer and a Kuwaiti citizen fugitive based in London, convicting them of trafficking hashish and psychotropic substances air-freighted from the British capital to Kuwait.

Presided over by Counselor Hamoud Al‑Shami, with Judges Fahd Boursli and Abdullah Al‑Maqahwi sitting on the bench and Abdullah Al‑Failakawi as court secretary, the panel also sentenced a young woman and another citizen to seven years in prison each, following a meticulously staged ambush and intensive investigations by the Anti‑Narcotics Department.

The ruling capped a dramatic probe in which anti-drug officers tracked the illicit shipment from overseas, set up a controlled operation, and moved in on the suspects, exposing a trafficking network that prosecutors said exploited international air cargo routes to flood the country with narcotics.