PUTRAJAYA: A Chinese national couple leaped for joy as they could now return home to China for Chinese New Year after the Court of Appeal acquitted them on a charge of drug possession, here yesterday.
Koo Wing Cheung, 29 and his girlfriend Fan Ting Ting, 25, who had spent four years in prison, hugged each other in the dock after the Court of Appeal three-member panel led by Datuk Abdul Malik Ishak allowed the appeal to set aside their conviction and 18-year jail term.
“I’m relieved and all I want now is to return home to be with my family in Hong Kong,” said Koo, 29.
A teary-eyed Fan, from Shenzhen, mainland China, said she just wanted to return home to celebrate the new year.
The couple, represented by lawyer Gooi Soon Seng, had every reason to celebrate their freedom because they initially escaped the gallows. They were first charged with trafficking 54gm of methamphetamine in a house at Kota Damansara, Petaling Jaya on March 3, 2009.
At the close of the defence trial last year, the High Court reduced the trafficking charge to possession and sentenced Khoo and Fan to 18 years in jail.
Khoo was also ordered to be given 10 strokes of the whip.
Both of them appealed to the Court of Appeal against the conviction and sentence.
Earlier in his submission, Gooi said the couple were arrested in a master bedroom but the drugs were recovered by the police in the kitchen and another room of the house which belonged to a person known as Chee Chai. — Bernama