ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Two employees of a Basra hospital were arrested on Monday on charges of dealing drugs, reported Iraq's Federal Commission of Integrity, adding that the suspects had used the hospital’s ambulances to transport the substances.
The suspects were employees of Basra’s Al-Faiha general hospital, and had engaged in transporting “hallucinogenic and narcotic pills” without a medical prescription, according to a statement from the commission.
“The case of the two employees is in the stage of investigation and we will await the results,” Khalid Salama, head of media and communications at the Basra health department, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir on Monday, stressing that they “trust the judgment of the court.”
Forty tablets were caught inside an ambulance car assigned to the two employees for the purpose of trading them, the statement added.
The rate of drug addicts and dealers has been on alarming rise in Iraq in recent years, despite strict measures taken by the Iraqi government to curb the phenomenon.
More than 20,000 drug users have been arrested in the past two and a half years, revealed Iraq’s Narcotics Control directorate in June, also seizing over 500,000 kilograms of psychotropic substances in that same time period.
Iraqi security forces in late April said they had broken up a drug trafficking ring and seized over six million pills of the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon.
The suspects were employees of Basra’s Al-Faiha general hospital, and had engaged in transporting “hallucinogenic and narcotic pills” without a medical prescription, according to a statement from the commission.
“The case of the two employees is in the stage of investigation and we will await the results,” Khalid Salama, head of media and communications at the Basra health department, told Rudaw’s Hastyar Qadir on Monday, stressing that they “trust the judgment of the court.”
Forty tablets were caught inside an ambulance car assigned to the two employees for the purpose of trading them, the statement added.
The rate of drug addicts and dealers has been on alarming rise in Iraq in recent years, despite strict measures taken by the Iraqi government to curb the phenomenon.
More than 20,000 drug users have been arrested in the past two and a half years, revealed Iraq’s Narcotics Control directorate in June, also seizing over 500,000 kilograms of psychotropic substances in that same time period.
Iraqi security forces in late April said they had broken up a drug trafficking ring and seized over six million pills of the amphetamine-type stimulant captagon.
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