PESHAWAR, Aug 1: The special judge (Control of Narcotics) here on Friday convicted a drug trafficker and sentenced him to life with a fine of Rs200,000.

The court, presided over by Abdur Rehman Khan, acquitted four co-accused due to lack of evidence.

The court observed that the prosecution had proved its case against the prime accused, Mushtaq, son of Razi Khan, of Attock district.

The acquitted co-accused are: Mushtaq, son of Mahboob of Haripur, Shahraz Akhter of Haripur, Jan Muhammad and Riaz Khan of Attock.

The prime accused was arrested by the officials of the Anti-Narcotics Force on Dec 18, 1998, while he was travelling in a vehicle bearing No BU 4808, and 40 kilograms of charas was recovered from the vehicle. He was charged under section 9 of the Control of Narcotics Substance Act, 1997.

The ANF claimed that they had been tipped off about smuggling of narcotics from the tribal area to Haripur. The ANF alleged that after the prime accused Mushtaq was arrested, he named six other persons as his co-accused, namely, Abdul Malik and Mumtaz of Bara (Khyber Agency), Mushtaq, Shahraz, Tan Muhammad and Riaz Khan.

Except for the two accused belonging to Bara, the remaining four were also arrested by the ANF. The ANF alleged that it had arrested the four co-accused from Haji Camp bus-stand.

About the four acquitted co-accused their counsel Advocate Noor Alam Khan argued that they were falsely implicated in the case.

He contended that they were not arrested from the place mentioned by the ANF and were in fact individually arrested from different places. He stated that the evidence on record proved that two of the co-accused were arrested from Haripur and not from Peshawar.

Counsel for the convict argued that no independent witnesses were associated by the ANF while recovering contraband from the vehicle.