Pendakwa Raya v ARMAND BIN MOHAMED SUHAIMI

Case Significance

Illustrates how a court treats a belated, uncorroborated denial as a bare afterthought once a prima facie trafficking case is established, and the discretionary choice between death and life imprisonment now available under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

This High Court trial at Shah Alam concerned two drug charges arising from events on 17 October 2022 in the district of Hulu Langat, Selangor. The first and principal charge was one of trafficking in cannabis of a net weight of 466.5 grams under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 ("Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952"); the second was a charge of possession of a small quantity of cannabis, 0.22 grams, under section 6 of the same Act. The accused claimed trial to both. At the close of the prosecution case, having undertaken a maximum evaluation of the evidence of the prosecution witnesses and the documentary exhibits, the court found that a prima facie case had been made out and called on the accused to enter a defence. The accused gave sworn evidence from the witness box and was the only witness for the defence. The court found the defence to be, in substance, a bare denial and an afterthought: notably, the accused had not challenged the prosecution witnesses on the account of a sling bag said to have been brought into the accused's room by a companion, raising that matter only belatedly at the defence stage, and the challenge to the cautioned words mounted only then was similarly treated as a mere denial. Concluding that the prosecution had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt, the court convicted the accused on both charges. On sentence, and taking account of current sentencing trends for section 39B offences, the court declined to impose the death penalty and sentenced the accused, on the trafficking charge, to life imprisonment recorded as 30 years from the date of arrest together with 12 strokes of the rotan, and to two years' imprisonment on the possession charge, the terms to run concurrently. The judgment illustrates the treatment of a late, uncorroborated denial as an afterthought and the discretionary approach to sentencing under section 39B.