A man who arrived at Junee jail with drugs hidden inside his body has pleaded guilty before a Wagga court.
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Ali Ibrahim, 28, was already serving out a six-year jail sentence for supplying drugs when he was transferred to the Junee Correctional Centre on April 12.
When he arrived at the jail, correctional officers conducted a standard strip search on Ibrahim, as is protocol for all new inmates.
During the search, officers found an orange package wrapped in clear plastic after noticing a hole that had been cut into the lining of his underpants.
When they questioned him about the package, Ibrahim replied “it’s mine, it’s for personal use”.
As the search continued, correctional officers found another red package, which was this time concealed inside his bottom.
Correctional officers later unwrapped the packages, revealing 1.33 grams of cannabis, 0.75 grams of tobacco, and 13 strips of buprenorphine, a replacement drug used by heroin and methadone dependent patients.
Ibrahim fronted Wagga Local Court on Wednesday via video-link and entered guilty pleas to two counts of possessing a prohibited drug.
His solicitor told the court he never intended to sell the drugs he smuggled into the jail to other inmates.
“He uses it to manage his withdrawals – he's trying to get off ice,” she said.
“It’s also used, I’m told, to ease his anxiety – at the time when Mr Ibrahim was found with these drugs on him, he was being moved between a number of centres."
While magistrate Christopher Halburd accepted that Ibrahim only had a small amount of each drug on his person, he said possessing any amount of a prohibited drug was unacceptable.
“You’re in custody for supply prohibited drug, you can’t think you can possess prohibited drugs and get away scot-free,” Mr Halburd said.
“That said, I accept this was for your personal use, and if there was any concern that it was for anything else, with your record, you’d be getting quite a whack handed on at the end of your sentence – you might not even be in this court.”
Ibrahim was convicted and sentenced to one months’ jail for the cannabis and two months’ jail for the buprenorphine.
