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Radio 1 DJ jailed for four years in Dubai
This article was first published on guardian.co.uk on Tuesday February 19 2008. It was last updated at 19:22 on February 19 2008.
BBC Radio 1 DJ Grooverider has today been jailed for four years in Dubai for possession of cannabis.
One half of Radio 1 duo Fabio and Grooverider, the DJ was arrested at the city's airport after flying in for a nightclub gig on November 23. Customs officials found 2.16 grams of cannabis in his luggage.
The DJ, whose real name is Raymond Bingham, has denied deliberately smuggling drugs into the country and claimed to have accidentally left them in a trouser pocket.
He remains in custody in Dubai, one of the seven emirates in the United Arab Emirates federation, and has two weeks to appeal today's sentence.
"It's ridiculous. I must have forgotten the spliff. It was a small amount. Back home I would not even get prosecuted," he said last month in an interview from his prison cell.
The weekly Radio 1 programme, which airs at 2am each Sunday, has continued without him since his arrest.
He was employed on a freelance basis and has not been paid by the station since November. Grooverider has been with Radio 1 since 1998.
A Radio 1 spokesman said: "He has made a serious mistake and he is paying a very high price."
Four years is the minimum sentence for drug trafficking in the United Arab Emirates and the most serious offences are punishable by the death penalty.
In the last 12 months, 64 British nationals have been arrested in the UAE for drugs offences, according to the Foreign Office.
In 2006, US record producer Dallas Austin was sentenced by a Dubai court to four years in jail for cocaine possession, but received a royal pardon hours later and was deported.
* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2008
Dubai prison sentence looms for Hampstead television executive
editorial@hamhigh.co.uk
19 February 2008
Hampstead TV executive Cat Le-Huy is facing four years in a Dubai jail after hashish weighing less than a grain of sugar was found in his bag.
Friends and family have been told this week by the Dubai authorities that the Garnett Road businessman faces being imprisoned after a microscopic trace of the drug was found in dirt in his bag.
Mr Le-Huy, head of technology at Endemol, makers of big Brother, has been held for three weeks without charge after flying into the United Arab Emirates on January 26.
At first customs authorities said he was being held for carrying suspicious jet leg pills, but they now allege finding 0.03grammes of hashish - an amount so small it can't be seen by the naked eye.
A fighting fund has been set up to cover Mr Le-Huy's legal fees with £25,000 already flooding in from friends, family and supporters.
"I am sure if I went to Shepherds Bush where he worked and picked up some soil I would find traces of drugs and it's such a small amount it could even be off someone he brushed past," said friend Radha Sterling.
We have asked for independent testing of the dirt and to know what equipment they are using but they have refused. Personally I don't think there are any drugs whatsoever."
Dubai authorities have successfully applied to hold 31-year-old Mr Le-Huy him until the end of March - when he faces being charged and served a UAE mandatory drug sentence of four years behind bars.
For more on this story, see this week's Ham&High.
This is well beyond reason. It already boggles the mind how you can find 0.03 grams of cannabis. Someone might be carrying a note with traces of cocaine on it (most notes in circulation have such traces) and he'll get to spend 4 years behind bars.DISCLAIMER: the author of the above written texts does not warrant or assume any legal liability or responsibility for any offence and insult; disrespect, arrogance and related forms of demeaning behaviour; discrimination based on race, gender, age, income class, body mass, living area, political voting-record, football fan-ship and musical preference; insensitivity towards material, emotional or spiritual distress; and attempted emotional or financial black-mailing, skirt-chasing or death-threats perceived by the reader of the said written texts.Comment
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Don't you find it impressive?It already boggles the mind how you can find 0.03 grams of cannabis.I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator RubioComment
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Another reason not to travel to the Middle East.Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...Comment
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You have weed on you?I make no bones about my moral support for [terrorist] organizations. - chegitz guevara
For those who aspire to live in a high cost, high tax, big government place, our nation and the world offers plenty of options. Vermont, Canada and Venezuela all offer you the opportunity to live in the socialist, big government paradise you long for. –Senator RubioComment
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I might have stepped on a piece.Christianity: The belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh and telepathically tell him you accept him as your master, so he can remove an evil force from your soul that is present in humanity because a rib-woman was convinced by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree...Comment
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bollocks, i was going to see grooverider next month. i'll have to spark one up in his honour.
"The Christian way has not been tried and found wanting, it has been found to be hard and left untried" - GK Chesterton.
"The most obvious predicition about the future is that it will be mostly like the past" - Alain de BottonComment
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