Maungdaw: Three yaba dealers were sentenced by a district court in northern Arakan’s Maungdaw Township on Thursday to 20 years in prison for attempting to smuggle yaba tablets to Bangladesh, reports a lawyer from the district court on condition of anonymity.

He said, “The verdict was passed down to them by the Maungdaw district court on Thursday, but another two individuals were released unconditionally.”

The yaba dealers from Maung Ni Village located on the outskirts of Maungdaw were arrested with 800 tablets in their possession at the beginning of last year. They were arrested by police as they were crossing the Naff River from Burma to Bangladesh in a row boat.

After their arrest, the three confessed that the tablets did not belong to them, but to the owners of two drug stores - Zaw Win and Har Chai - in Maungdaw. They told police officers that they had been paid to transport the drugs. The police later arrested the two drug store owners.

Yesterday, the court released the drug store owners unconditionally because they were not arrested with tablets in their possession, while the three smugglers were sentenced to long prison terms.

The lawyer said, “It is not a fair application of the verdict, because the court only sentenced the three poor people to long prison terms, while the other two rich people who owned the drugs were set free.”

After the verdict was handed down, rumors began to spread in Maungdaw that the judge was bribed with a large sum of money by the two drug store owners to be released unconditionally, a local source said.

The sentence handed down to the three men is the first drug conviction and jail term by the Maungdaw district court since constable Thein Win was sentenced to 18 years in prison for his involvement in smuggling yaba to Bangladesh last year.

In the western border town of Maungdaw, the arrest and sentencing of drug dealers is usually even because many people are involved in the business of smuggling yaba to Bangladesh.