Pendakwa Raya v MOHAMAD RASHID BIN SAHUTI

Case Significance

Shows how the section 37(da) trafficking presumption operates once possession of the drugs is established, and how a court exercises the discretionary choice between the death penalty and life imprisonment for a section 39B offence.

This High Court trial at Shah Alam concerned a charge of drug trafficking under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 ("Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952"), the accused having been found with cannabis of a net weight of 243.65 grams. The prosecution case was that officers, acting on a police report, went to a premises storing machinery at Banting, Selangor, where the accused was found carrying a sling bag containing the impugned drugs. The defence disputed both possession of the sling bag and knowledge of its contents. At the close of the prosecution case the court, on maximum evaluation of the evidence, found that all the ingredients of the offence had been made out and called on the accused to enter a defence, the statutory presumption of trafficking under section 37(da) of the Act having been engaged. At the end of the trial the court held that the defence had failed to raise any reasonable doubt and had not rebutted the statutory presumption on the balance of probabilities, characterising the account as a bare denial and an afterthought. The court convicted the accused as charged. In mitigation it was urged that the accused was a first-time offender and the family's sole breadwinner, while the prosecution pressed the seriousness of the offence and the public interest. Exercising the sentencing discretion now available for section 39B offences, the court declined to impose the death penalty and instead sentenced the accused to life imprisonment, recorded as 30 years, running from the date of arrest ("dari tarikh tangkap"), together with 12 strokes of the rotan. The chemist's evidence established the identity and net weight of the impugned drugs, and the court accepted the prosecution's account of the search and the seizure of the sling bag at the storage premises as reliable and not displaced by the defence. The judgment illustrates how the trafficking presumption operates once possession is established and how a court approaches the discretionary sentencing choice between death and life imprisonment.