19-year-old Nur Dhiya Ain Rosman, who was believed to be used as drug mule, was arrested on Sunday at the Cape Town International Airport for attempting to traffic 1.2kg of syabu.
“She has been detained and may be charged soon,” said UMNO community complaints bureau chief Muhd Khairun Aseh at a press conference yesterday.
The complaints bureau was assisting the parents of Nur Dhiya, after the parents suspected that their daughter was being used as a drug mule. According to Khairun, the teen was promised with a lucrative travel operator post by a group of foreigners that she got to know only two weeks earlier.
Nur Dhiya may be facing the death penalty for trafficking more than 50 grams of drugs.
The bureau is now seeking to provide legal assistance for the teen.
“We will get her a lawyer, she doesn’t have a lawyer when she was brought to the first court hearing today,”” added Khairun.
Out of the blue, Nur Dhiya had rung her parents – Musa Abdul Chik and Roslah Abdul Jani, on August 9 and informed them of her immediate departure to South Africa. The parents suspected something was amiss and tried to get the police to stop her boarding the flight.
Nur Dhiya arrived in Cape Town on August 10 and was brought to a hotel room under surveillance.
From August 10 to August 15, the bureau was trying to convince the school-leaver that she was toyed though her close friend Nur Zakri Mhd Idrus , but all the advises has fallen into deaf ears.
Parents decry ineffective police and foreign ministry
The police failed to take effective action to bar the teen from boarding the flight even though the parents have lodged a police report two hours before the flight’s departure.
“KLIA did not even pick up our calls each time we tried to call,” added Nur Dhiya’s father Musa Abdul Chik.
He said same thing happened when they approached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to stop his daughter from transiting via Doha.
“They said they have no reason to stop her because she had no (criminal) case (recorded). If this is the way, a lot of them will end up being arrested like my daughter,” he added.
The parents still hold a bare hope that their daughter could come back to their arms before Hari Raya.