Fisherman freed of drug trafficking charge
Posted on August 1, 2012, Wednesday
ALOR SETAR: A fisherman escaped the gallows when the High Court here yesterday acquitted and discharged him of a drug trafficking charge.
However, the 35-year-old fisherman was sentenced to 16 years jail for drug possession.
Judicial Commissioner Mohd Zaki Abdul Wahab, in freeing Abd Kadir Ismail on the drug trafficking charge, said that the prosecution had failed to raise a prima facie in the case.
Abd Kadir was charged with trafficking 7.2gm of heroin and 8.96gm of monoacetylmorphine in a fishing boat at the banks of Sungai Kuala Sala in Yan at about noon on March 8 last year.
He was also charged with possession of 0.29gm of heroin and 0.22gm of monoacetylmorphine at the same place and time and on the same day, for which he pleaded guilty.
In the judgment, Mohd Zaki said when police conducted the raid on the boat, five people were arrested, and after a search, found that only the accused had drugs in his sling back, while the heroin (7.2gm) and monoacetylmorphine (8.96gm)were found in two paper packages in the engine compartment of the boat.
“The prosecution however failed to prove that the drugs found in the packages was under the the control of the accused,” he added.
Deputy public prosecutor Noor Fadzila Ishak prosecuted, while lawyer T.Jayaraj represented Abd Kadir. — Bernama
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