Two Johor men escape the gallows
Published on: Tuesday, March 20, 2018
Kota Kinabalu: Two men from Johor escaped the gallows when the Federal Court here on Monday overturned their conviction and sentence for drug trafficking and sentenced them to 20 years' jail instead for drug possession.A five-member panel comprising Chief Justice Tun Md Raus Sharif, Chief Judge of Malaya Tan Sri Ahmad Maarop and Federal Court judges Tan Sri Zainun Ali, Tan Sri Azahar Mohamed and Tan Sri Wira Aziah Ali allowed the appeal of Eswaran Susop and Jaswant Singh.In setting aside the conviction on Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act, the apex court substituted it with Section 12(2) of the same Act, punishable under Section 39A(2) of the same Act, on the exact amount of drugs for both appellants.
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The justices unanimously sentenced Eswaran and Jaswant to 20 years' jail each from the date of their arrest and ordered them to be given 10 lashes of the cane each, after hearing their mitigation.Earlier, Johor-based lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, who was the appointed counsel for both appellants, applied for the sentence to run from the date of their arrest on March 18, 2012 and requested the court to consider that they both were still young.The prosecution, as the respondent, urged the court to impose imprisonment of more than 20 years on the grounds that the weights of the drugs were more than 700gm.The charge under Section 39A(2) of the DDA carries imprisonment for life or not less than five years and liability of whipping of not less than 10 strokes, if convicted.
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Eswaran and Jaswant, both 26, were on Oct 23, 2013 found guilty by the High Court here and sentenced to death.They were found trafficking 770.9gm and 780.2gm of syabu, respectively, at 1pm on March 18, 2012 at the arrival hall of Terminal 2 in the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) here.
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The offence under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) 1952 carries the death penalty on conviction.Their appeals were rejected by the Court of Appeal on July 18, 2016.Earlier, counsel Teh raised two grounds in the appeal, namely that the trial judge misdirected himself when he convicted the appellants based on approximations in the weights of the drugs and that the trial judge had erred in law when he did not ask himself whether it could be a case of possession instead of trafficking.Teh, representing both appellants together with counsel Dato' Jagjit Singh Bant Singh and Ram Singh, submitted, among others, that the convictions cannot be sustained as they were based on approximations in the weights of the drugs.The trial judge, in delivering oral ruling at the end of the prosecution's stage, held that the prosecution had proved its case of trafficking but with a slight amendment by adding the word "about" before the weight of the drugs in the respective charges and called the appellants to enter their defence, said Teh, adding that consequently, Eswaran and Jaswant were convicted of trafficking in "about 770.9gm" and "about 780.2gm" of syabu, respectively."It is a serious misdirection as there is ambiguity as to the amounts of drugs the appellants trafficked. The Dangerous Drugs Act is a piece of penal statute and there is no room for ambiguities or uncertainties," submitted Teh.Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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