Kota Kinabalu: A 44-year-old man, who was jailed five years and six months and ordered one stroke of the cane for taking syabu the third time, had his jail term reduced to one year and two months.
High Court Judicial Commissioner Datuk Duncan Sikodol on Wednesday allowed Ahmad Suhaimi Abdul Razak’s appeal against his sentence and set aside the decision of the lower court.
Duncan held that since the chemist report was tendered and confirmed that Ahmad was positive for drugs, the court substituted the offence to one under Section 15(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) 1952, which provides for a fine of up to RM5,000 or a jail term of up to two years, on conviction.
The court sentenced Ahmad to one year and two months jail from the date of his arrest on Jan 14, 2020.
Earlier, Duncan told the prosecution to put the matter regarding the requirement of Section 400 of the Criminal Procedure Code in order as he had said previously.
Ahmad was on June 9, 2020 jailed five years and six months and ordered one stroke of the cane after he pleaded guilty to taking syabu on Jan 14, 2020 in Kudat in which the charge stated that he had two previous conviction records on similar offence.
The charge under Section 15 (1)(a) of the DDA 1952 read with Section 39C(1)(b) of the same Act and punishable under Section 39C (1) of the DDA 1952 which carries a jail term of up to seven years and whipping on conviction.
Ahmad, who was not represented, requested for his sentence to be reduced, as he is worried how his children will fare without him.
He said he had been in jail for one year and two months and that he was really remorseful and promised not to even look at drugs anymore.
The prosecution applied for the sentence by the Sessions Court to be affirmed.
Meanwhile, the court reserved its decision to April 7 upon appeal by a man, who was jailed 20 years and ordered 15 lashes of the cane for raping his underage niece, against his conviction and sentence.
Duncan set the date after hearing the submissions from the appellant’s counsel and the prosecution as a respondent.
The man was on Aug 27, 2019 sentenced to 20 years’ jail and ordered 15 strokes of the cane by the Kudat Sessions Court after a full trial of raping the 13-year-old girl at 3pm in early September 2017 in a house of a village in Kudat.
The charge under Section 376(3) of the Penal Code carries a jail term of between eight years and 30 years and whipping not less than 10 times on conviction.
The man was ordered to serve the sentence from the date of the conviction.
In his appeal on Wednesday, the appellant’s counsel Amli Nohin, raised issues, among others whether there were relations between the victim and the appellant.
Amli submitted that the birth certificates of the victim, her father and the appellant were tendered during the examination-in-chief of the investigating officer (IO), who testified that he obtained them from the victim’s father directly and not from the National Registration Department (NRD) in order to prove the relationship.
Amli said the genuineness of the documents raised a question due to the way of how the IO obtained them, adding that they were only copies and no “certified true copy” were presented during the trial.
He also submitted that the sister of the victim’s father had testified that he is not the real brother of the appellant.
The sister testified that that the victim’s father bought his birth certificate in Kudat and that the person stated on the birth certificate of the father had already passed away.
The prosecution submitted that based on the birth certificates, the appellant and the victim are indeed related to each other.
The prosecution said the matter was only raised during defence of the trial.
