Drug-dealing parents hid meth in kid’s room
A mother and Iranian refugee who funded a lavish lifestyle by taking part in the sale of meth will remain in jail after her desperate attempt to be freed on Friday failed in the state’s highest court.
Yosra Rabieh, 35, was last year sentenced to at least 5½ years in prison after she was found guilty of a string of serious drug offences following a raid on her Sydney home where police found a large stash of meth that had been imported from Thailand.
Rabieh and her husband Ali Maleki fled Iran in 2013 for Australia before they were granted temporary protection visas.
In February 2018, the pair were charged over the supply of more than 30kg of methylamphetamine, which was found in their home they shared with their two children.
When police raided their Asquith house in Sydney’s north, they found more than 30kg of meth in the garage and $264,750 in cash.
Officers also discovered more than 2.5kg of meth stashed in a wardrobe in a child’s bedroom.
Rabieh pleaded guilty in August 2019 but withdrew her plea in January 2021.
In a bizarre twist, the former law student claimed that at the time she did not know what “guilty” meant.
She was ultimately found guilty of supplying a commercial quantity of methamphetamine and dealing with the property proceeds of crime after a District Court trial in early 2023.
During the trial, Rabieh denied ever having knowledge of the drugs despite boldly discussing the sale and storage of illicit drugs in recorded conversations with her husband.
In one tapped phone call, Maleki asks her: “Is our load/shipment and stuff in there in the storage?”
“Yeah,” Rabieh replied.
He clarified: “The loads of illicit drugs, the false bottomed ones ...”
“Are they in the storage? Yeah,” she told him.
Maleki imported the methylamphetamine from Thailand hidden inside crates of charcoal, the jury was told.
The court was told that Rabieh enjoyed the spoils of the drug importation scheme, including luxury cars, purchases from designer stores like Louis Vuitton and overseas holidays.
In September last year, she was jailed for nine years and two months, with a non-parole period of five years and six months.
At the time of the offences, neither she nor her husband were working and were receiving Centrelink payments.
Despite the guilty verdict, Rabieh maintained her innocence and challenged her conviction in the Court of Criminal Appeal.
Her lawyers claimed the sentencing judge had erred when directing the jury about proof Rabieh had knowingly participated in drug supply and refusing to make a further direction.
On Friday, the court dismissed her appeal and found “there was no error in failing to give further direction”.
She will first be eligible for release on parole in August 2027.
For his role in the scheme, Maleki was in 2021 sentenced to a maximum of 14 years in prison, with a nine-year and four-month non-parole period.
