Two young Israeli women were arrested Friday at Krakow airport in Poland on suspicion of smuggling 50 kilograms of khat in their suitcases. The plant is classified as a drug in Poland. The two Haredi women, aged 23 and 24, had arrived on a flight from Israel.
Khat is in high demand in Europe, and Israeli organizers have been persuading young people, usually Haredim, to act as couriers in exchange for a flight ticket and 5,000 shekels. They are told that if they are caught, they will at most receive a small fine or have their suitcase confiscated.
khat
(Photo: AFP)
But Poland is considered one of the strictest countries when it comes to khat smugglers. Once the suitcases are found, the young couriers are arrested and sent to detention centers in Poland for periods ranging from weeks to months.
Polish law enforcement authorities use the detention as a “shock blow” and as a punitive element in itself, even before the trial begins.
Attorney Mordechai Tzivin, who represents Israelis arrested in Europe for khat smuggling, said that over the past two years, a relatively lenient “sentencing formula” has emerged in most cases, based on recognition that the young couriers were exploited.
In many cases, he said, the courts make do with the days spent in detention, with the final sentence overlapping the period the suspects have already spent behind bars. After sentencing, they are usually released.
Judges also tend to impose prison sentences of six months to a year, but convert them to suspended sentences. This allows Poland to convict the smuggler without further burdening the prison system.
The young Israelis are deported back to Israel and, in the vast majority of cases, receive an expulsion order and a ban on entering Poland and all Schengen Area countries for several years. In some cases, they are also fined, in addition to the confiscation of the substance itself.
However, leniency is not automatic. Local attorneys must prove that the young suspect was “naive,” meaning that he or she truly believed the plant was legal or that the offense was merely a minor customs violation, not a dangerous drug offense.
Attorney Mordechai TzivinIn cases where Polish police find correspondence on the suspect’s phone indicating that the person knew they were breaking criminal law, or tried to conceal the khat in a sophisticated way, courts may impose harsher penalties, including actual prison time.
“In the past two years, courts in Poland and Europe in general have avoided sending young khat smugglers to long years in prison, as the letter of the law would allow,” Tzivin said.
“However, the mistaken belief that ‘at worst they will confiscate it and send me home’ has completely collapsed. Today, the punishment means long months of trauma in detention under harsh conditions, an international criminal record and disgraceful deportation from Europe.”