Aziemah (second right) with her lawyer Satinder and parents following the court proceeding.
KUCHING: A 25-year-old woman charged with trafficking drugs two years ago was discharged and acquitted by the High Court here yesterday.
Judge Azhahari Kamal Ramli ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case against Aziemah Mohamad Fuzzie, who was a university student at the time of the alleged offence.
The judge also ordered for the case exhibits to be disposed off by the prosecution following a lapse in the appeal period.
Aziemah had been accused of trafficking 3.155kg of cannabis at a house in Samarahan around 2.30pm on March 19, 2018, and was charged under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 which carries the death penalty upon conviction.
According to the facts of the case, Aziemah was attending class at her university when she received a call from a Poslaju office here, asking her to collect three parcels.
The parcels had first arrived in the state on March 14 but were sent back to the Kuala Lumpur International Hub on March 16, before being delivered again on March 19.
All three parcels were addressed to the house in Samarahan but to a different addressee.
Following the call from the Poslaju office, Aziemah and three other persons later headed there to pick up the parcels.
Five to 10 minutes after making the collection, the four of them were stopped by Customs officers who were subsequently led by Aziemah to the house in Samarahan.
At all material times, the three parcels remained sealed until one of the Customs officers opened one of them and found it to contain the cannabis.
There were no drugs in the other two parcels. After hearing from 14 prosecution witnesses during trial, Justice Azhahari ruled that there were serious material discrepancies that remained unexplained by the prosecution.
Among them were the endorsement on the said parcel bearing the terms ‘Security Checked’ and ‘Passed’ underneath the date ‘15.3.2018’ which was unexplained by the prosecution, and that the Customs Department was only informed of the parcels at 2.30pm on March 16, 2018 – meaning that for several hours prior to that, the parcels were under the custody and control of auxiliary police personnel whose identities could not be recalled by the Customs staff stationed at the Kuala Lumpur mail branch.
In addition, the judge also found that the parcels had been opened while they were in transit at the Kuala Lumpur branch.
Justice Azhahari also said the parcel containing the cannabis, which had been sent by a legal entity supplying locks, contained legal items until it reached the Kuala Lumpur International Hub and that moreover, the prosecution had failed to call the sender to give evidence to the contrary.
Aziemah was represented by counsels Satinder Singh Sandhu, Izayyeem Azim and Lim Vui Seng.