Pendakwa Raya v SOON PING KIONG

Case Significance

Illustrates the sentencing framework for large-quantity methamphetamine trafficking under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, including life imprisonment without whipping where a legal factor applies, and the disposal of connected charges by concurrent terms.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam is one of a group of drug prosecutions tried together arising from a police operation on 17 November 2020 in Shah Alam, Selangor, and this file concerns the trafficking charge directed at the first accused alone. Under this file the first accused was charged under seksyen 39B(1)(a) Akta Dadah Berbahaya 1952 (section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952), punishable under section 39B(2), for trafficking in 12,255.7 grams of methamphetamine found at a car park beside a car service centre. The prescribed punishment for that offence is death or imprisonment for life together with, if the accused is not sentenced to death, whipping of not fewer than twelve strokes. The prosecution's case rested on the seizure of the methamphetamine in the course of the operation, and the accused's defence, common to the group of charges, was that the drugs belonged to another person then in detention under the Akta Langkah-Langkah Pencegahan Khas 1985 (the Special Preventive Measures Act 1985); the defence also invoked section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950 in relation to the prosecution's failure to call that person. The court examined whether the prosecution had proved possession and the ingredients of trafficking to the required standard across the linked charges. Convicting the first accused, the court imposed on the trafficking charges tried together, including this one, sentences of life imprisonment reckoned from the date of arrest on 17 November 2020, and ordered that no whipping be imposed on the ground of a legal factor, with all the several terms of imprisonment to run concurrently. The judgment is a useful illustration of the sentencing framework for large-quantity methamphetamine trafficking under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, including the imposition of life imprisonment without whipping where a legal factor applies, and of the disposal of connected charges by concurrent terms.