Pendakwa Raya v 1. ) SOON PING KIONG 2. ) Miss Prakat Tachan (Thailand) (P)

Case Significance

Illustrates joint liability for trafficking in a very large quantity of methamphetamine under section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and the imposition of life imprisonment without whipping where a legal factor bars the whipping component.

This High Court decision at Shah Alam is part 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 a trafficking charge brought jointly against both accused. Under this file the first accused and the second accused, a foreign national, were charged together 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 30,937 grams of methamphetamine found on an upper floor of the car service centre premises. The offence carries death or imprisonment for life together with whipping of not fewer than twelve strokes for an accused not sentenced to death. The prosecution's case turned on the seizure of that large quantity of methamphetamine during the operation and on proof that both accused were in joint possession of and trafficking the drugs. The accused advanced a common defence that the drugs belonged to a person then in detention under the Akta Langkah-Langkah Pencegahan Khas 1985 (the Special Preventive Measures Act 1985), and argued that the prosecution's failure to call that person invited an adverse inference under section 114(g) of the Evidence Act 1950. The court had to be satisfied that both accused had joint possession of, and the custody, control and knowledge of, the large consignment found on the upper floor before the ingredients of trafficking in so substantial a quantity could be made out against each of them, and to weigh the defence attributing the drugs to the detained third party against that proof. Having evaluated the evidence, the court convicted both accused on this charge and sentenced each of them to life imprisonment, reckoned as thirty years from the date of arrest on 17 November 2020, ordering that no whipping be imposed on account of a legal factor, and directed that the sentence run concurrently with the sentences imposed in the related files. The judgment is a useful illustration of joint liability for trafficking in a very large quantity of methamphetamine and of the imposition of life imprisonment without whipping where a legal factor bars the whipping component.