Prince charged with drug smuggling

Lebanese judicial authorities charged a Saudi prince and nine other people with drug smuggling via Beirut airport, and referred the case to an investigating judge, judicial sources and the National News Agency reported on Monday.

The prince has been widely identified in Lebanese media as Abdulmohsen bin Walid bin Abdulmohsen bin Abdulaziz Al Saud.

Lebanese authorities detained five Saudis last week after finding 2 tons of Captagon amphetamine pills bound for Saudi Arabia on a private jet, security sources said, the biggest smuggling operation discovered at the airport.

On Monday the prince and four other people in custody were accused of the crime, the news agency cited Claude Karam, public prosecutor for the Mount Lebanon area, as saying. The charges were also leveled at five other people in absentia, he added.

Karam declined to name the prince, however, citing the secrecy of the ongoing investigation.

There has been no comment from Saudi authorities on the case.

Consumption of Captagon outside the Middle East is negligible, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said last year, but it is a significant drug in the Gulf. Lebanon and neighboring Syria are conduit routes for the drug.