Three Iranians Arrested in Georgia for Drug Trafficking

The Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia announced that the police have arrested three Iranian citizens for 'selling illegal drugs.' According to the statement from the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia published on Saturday, September 4, these three Iranians were caught selling drugs to participants at an electronic music festival in the port city of Anaklia. The Georgian news agency ASPNY reported, citing the Ministry of Internal Affairs, that two of the detainees are 26 years old and the third is 21. If found guilty in court, each of these three Iranians could face a prison sentence of six to eleven years. Previously, Hossein Panahi-Azar, Deputy for Consular Affairs at the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reported in June of this year that over 2,916 Iranians are imprisoned in jails outside of Iran, with crimes including 'human trafficking,' 'theft,' and 'drug transportation.' He noted that most of these 2,916 Iranians are serving their sentences in Turkish prisons. This Iranian official mentioned that under a prisoner exchange agreement between Iran and ten countries, '392 Iranian prisoners returned to the country' in the first three months of 2018. According to Mr. Panahi-Azar, some of these individuals were 'released' while others were transferred back to Iran to continue 'their sentences in Iranian prisons.' He did not specify the charges against these individuals, but added that they were imprisoned in 'Kuwait, Armenia, Oman, Pakistan, Turkmenistan, and the UAE.' Earlier this year, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, a member of parliament, told the Fararo website that 'the highest number of Iranian prisoners is in Malaysia, Turkey, and Turkmenistan.' He stated that 'some of the prisoners are women and are in poor conditions; even some of the prisons in these countries are mixed-gender. These are the difficulties that Iranian nationals are enduring.' It has also been reported that several Iranian nationals face execution in Saudi Arabia and Malaysia for drug trafficking, and some have already been executed in Saudi Arabia. In recent years, it has been stated that Iranian nationals are imprisoned not only in Turkey, Iraq, and the UAE, but also in Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, China, and in the Americas and Europe, including Italy and Greece. More than 90% of Iranians imprisoned in Gulf countries are related to 'drug offenses.' The crimes of Iranian nationals in Kuwait and Iraq are mostly 'illegal entry,' while in Turkmenistan, most Iranian prisoners are heavy vehicle drivers arrested for 'drug trafficking, cigarette smuggling, and possession of narcotic pills.' The ISNA news agency reported in 2014 that in East Asia, Malaysia has the highest number of Iranian prisoners at 242, with 76 of them sentenced to death in the first eight months of 2013. According to this report, in Japan, 223 individuals were arrested for 'drug trafficking, theft, illegal residency, murder, and robbery' in the first eight months of 2013, and by the end of that year, their number increased to 300.