4 Taiwanese ordered to make defence on drug charge

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PUTRAJAYA: The Federal Court here yesterday set aside the acquittal of four Taiwanese men on a charge of drug trafficking.

Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Md Raus Sharif, chairing a three-man panel, ordered their case be remitted to the Johor Baharu High Court for them to make their defence.

Md Raus, who sat on the panel with Federal Court judges Datuk Hashim Yusoff and Tan Sri James Foong Cheng Yuen, ruled that a prima facie case had been established.

The panel allowed the prosecution’s appeal to set aside the Johor Baharu High Court’s decision delivered on Dec 27, last year to acquit Chung Sheng Wen, 38, Chang Min Yen, 37, Chang Yun Sheng, 33, and Wu Sheng Yuan, 33, without ordering them to make their defence on the charge.

The prosecution lodged an appeal to the Federal Court after it was unsuccessful at the appellate court which upheld the four men’s acquittal.

In his decision, Md Raus said the court was of the view that the High Court and the appellate court were wrong in their findings that there were no nexus between the respondents, drugs, machines and packages found in a factory.

He fixed Dec 2 for mention of the case at the High Court.

The four were charged with trafficking Nimetazepam weighing 43.033gm at a factory in Jalan Angkasa Emas 6, in the Tebrau Industrial Area 2, Johor Baharu about 5.30am on March 22, 2009.

They were arrested by a police team which raided the factory. The police seized a variety of tools, equipment, chemicals and machines, believed to have been used to manufacture the drugs.

The drugs, in the form of pills, were also found in the factory.

In an unrelated case, former police lance corporal Yusri Mat Daud escaped the gallows when the same Federal Court panel acquitted and discharged him on a charge of trafficking in 5,756 grammes of cannabis.

The panel allowed Yusri’s appeal to set aside the Shah Alam High Court’s decision to convict and sentence him to death on the charge of trafficking the drug in front of Carista Medicare Pharmacy in Wisma Dato Lope, Batu 7, Jalan Cheras at 4.15pm on May 9, 2002.

The 43-year-old, who was attached to the General Operations Force, filed an appeal to the Federal Court after the Court of Appeal, on Nov 3 last year, rejected his appeal and upheld his conviction and death sentence. — Bernama