MOGADISHU (Somaliguardian) –Two vehicles belonging to Somalia’s Deputy Prime Minister Mahdi Mohamed Guled have been caught smuggling khat into the capital, Mogadishu, police officials say.
Police officers who spoke to Somaliguardian on Saturday said two of several police vehicles used to transport the Deputy PM’s guards, had been intercepted by police trafficking stimulant khat from a coast outside the city’s Karan district –where a boat carrying the banned drug is believed to have washed ashore.
One of the vehicles, a gun-mounted Toyota pickup was handed over to Hiliwa district officials, though it has been later returned to the Deputy Prime Minister.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, two police officers told Somaliguardian that it had earlier been ordered to impound vehicles caught trafficking khat and that the decree was bypassed because of the Deputy Prime Minister, a man who maintains close ties with President Farmajo.
Somali federal government had earlier banned Khat imported from Kenya, but the stimulant drug is still smuggled into the capital and openly sold at markets in heavily fortified quarters of the city, where government officials live.
The drug, which residents in the city had called for it to be outlawed, is smuggled into Mogadishu by the vehicles of government officials and security forces.
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