Luxury flat tenant was fugitive drug dealer

Jameel Ahmed failed to turn up at Luton Crown Court in 2001 to face drug charges after 894 Ecstasy tablets and cannabis were found at a house where he was a tenant.

He managed to evade justice for nearly nine years until last September when he was arrested running "a mobile drug shop" from his car in Shire Oak Street Headingley, Leeds.

Adrian Robinson prosecuting told Leeds Crown Court yesterday attention was drawn to the 2009 registered vehicle by the smell of cannabis from it.

A search of the car revealed a total of 45 deals of cannabis in a plastic box inside a holdall or hidden under the driver's seat. A driving licence in the name of Nazam Hussain was also found along with 375 in cash.

A fingerprints scan revealed Hussain's true identity as a wanted man.

His address in Regents Quay, in Bowman Lane, Hunslet was also searched and almost one and a half kilogrammes of cannabis, worth about 12,000, was found as well as 3,400 in cash.

Mr Robinson said Ahmed had rented the three bedroom two bathroom apartment from August 2008 in the name of Hussain, paying 1,500 a month. A passport and a driving licence in another name were also found in the property along with seven mobile phones.

Ahmed, 33, was jailed for a total of nine years three months. He admitted possessing ecstasy and cannabis with intent to supply in Luton, failing to attend court, and three charges of possessing cannabis with intent to supply in Leeds, possessing criminal property and possessing a false identity document.

Sentencing him Judge Paul Hoffman said: "You were on the run in effect for almost nine years during which time you assumed a new identity which you gave to the police and in respect of which you acquired a driving licence, and in that new identity you went on to deal drugs again."

Michael Smith for Ahmed told the court he had initially got into dealing to fund his gambling.

Those who knew him through his sometime work as a taxi driver and other employments had written references to the court because they had seen a very different side of him.