Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 203

Summary: - The judgment's statement of the facts of the case, the evidence therein, and the presence of all legal elements of the offence of possessing and holding the narcotics hashish and morphine for personal use, of which it convicted the appellant, and its response to his defence that those elements were absent. The appellant's subsequent denial of the charge does not impair the validity of the judgment. Seizure of these two substances with the accused is unnecessary. Establishing their presence through test results is sufficient. Rule: Liability in cases of possessing and holding narcotics depends upon establishing the offender's connection with the narcotic, directly or through an intermediary, and his exercise of control over it—in any form—knowingly and voluntarily, either by physically possessing the narcotic or by holding it by way of ownership and exclusive control, even without physical possession. Criminal intent in this offence is established by the holder's or possessor's knowledge that what he possesses or holds is a narcotic substance. The judgment need not discuss either of these two elements; it is sufficient that the facts and circumstances stated sufficiently indicate their existence. What the challenged judgment stated in its account of the facts and the evidence therein—as previously explained—establishes all legal elements of the offence of possessing and holding the narcotics hashish and morphine for personal use, of which it convicted the appellant, as defined by law, and sufficiently answers the appellant's defence that those elements were absent. This is not undermined by the failure to seize the narcotic substances hashish and opium with the appellant, since that does not in itself prevent his conviction for holding and possessing these two substances for personal use, which the judgment established against him from the General Department of Criminal Evidence report finding, in his urine sample, metabolites of hashish and derivatives of morphine resulting from use of those two narcotic substances. The court's confidence in this conclusion constitutes an implicit response to his defence in this regard. This is not impaired by the appellant's denial of the charge after the judgment established it against him through probative evidence it accepted as sound.