DUBAI A sixth Briton has been arrested in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on suspicion of drugs trafficking, an offence that can carry the death penalty, AFP quoted a British consulate official as saying Saturday.
The official told AFP that the Briton, Steve James, was "arrested by Dubai police on November 19 in connection with drugs-related offences".
The British Embassy was informed on November 21 and a consular visit was arranged four days later, the spokesman told AFP, adding that James had legal representation.
The public prosecutor has yet to bring charges against James or the five other Britons rounded up earlier in November.
The BBC, meanwhile, reported that James, a business development manager who has been working in the Persian Gulf Arab Emirate for five years, told police he had acted under duress.
"He says he received threats to his estranged wife and three children living in Britain and was told to pick up a package at (London's) Gatwick Airport and make two deliveries on his return to Dubai," it said.
"The packages contained cocaine and Mr. James says he was arrested while making the second delivery at a five-star hotel in the city," the BBC reported on its Website.
Five other Britons, including three women, have been detained for drugs offenses by police from Ras al-Khaimah, a neighboring Emirate of Dubai.
The Gulf News said the suspects were allegedly part of a gang including an Australian woman and two Arabs who had set up "a Website which provided veiled information on drugs dens." Most of the suspects, including an air hostess, were rounded up in Dubai. The gang operated between the two Emirates, according to police.
Several foreigners have been sentenced to death over the past two years under a 1995 law that lays down capital punishment for drug trafficking. But no executions -- normally by firing squad in the UAE -- have been announced for narcotics crimes.