Yosef Dahan, an Israeli convicted of smuggling drugs into Egypt, was sentenced to death by hanging by a Cairo court Thursday. He has 90 days to appeal the sentence and can also appeal to President Hosni Mubarak for pardon as a last resort.
Zvi Litsky, an Israeli attorney who was in court as an observer, said he would brief Egyptian lawyers on the case in an effort to seek a re-trial. He didn’t say on what grounds. Non-Egyptian lawyers cannot plead before Egyptian courts.
Dahan, who lives in Ashkelon with his wife and family, was arrested at Cairo airport last August on his way home from India. A search of his luggage yielded 1.25 kilos of heroin. He told the court during his trial that he had intended to sell the drug in Israel. He flew to Cairo, he said, because he preferred to enter Israel via the land border, where customs inspections are not as stringent as at Ben Gurion Airport.
Israeli officials have indicated they would try to intercede with Mubarak to have Dahan’s sentence commuted to life imprisonment or, preferably, to have him extradited to Israel for trial where, if convicted he could be sentenced to life.
The Cairo court-imposed a $7,500 fine on Dahan in addition to the death penalty and ordered the confiscation of any property he may have in Egypt. Dahan is presently on death row in a Cairo jail along with four Egyptians, a Sri Lankan, and a Somali under death sentence for drug smuggling.
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