Pendakwa Raya v KU MUHAMAD IKMAL BIN KU MUHAMAD RAWI

Case Significance

Illustrates that where two reasonable possibilities arise from conflicting accounts of an arrest and seizure, the benefit of the doubt must be given to the accused, and doubts about the arresting officer's credibility can defeat proof of a trafficking charge beyond reasonable doubt.

This High Court decision at Alor Setar sets out the grounds for the acquittal of an accused charged with trafficking in dangerous drugs. The accused was charged under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 with trafficking in 205.9 grams of methamphetamine, the offence alleged to have been committed by the roadside in a town in Kedah. The prosecution's narrative was that, acting on information about drug-trafficking activity, a police team led by the principal witness had gone to the scene, seen the accused seated in a parked car, and, on searching a waist bag the accused was said to be wearing, found seven transparent plastic packets together with the accused's identity card. The accused's account differed materially as to where and how he was arrested and what was found on him, and the defence evidence, including that of a defence witness whose testimony was not shaken in cross-examination, supported his version. The Court found that this gave rise to two competing possibilities, and that the law is settled that where two reasonable possibilities arise the court must give the benefit of the doubt to the accused. There was a real possibility that the principal prosecution witness had not been truthful about where and how the accused was arrested, which in turn cast doubt on the account of what had been found on the accused — whether the drugs in the charge were truly recovered from the waist bag or whether, as the accused claimed, only a sum of money had been found. Applying the guidance in Mat v Public Prosecutor, the Court concluded that a reasonable doubt existed in the prosecution case and that the prosecution had failed to prove the charge beyond reasonable doubt. It accordingly acquitted and discharged the accused. The decision is a straightforward application of the principle that the prosecution must exclude every reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence, and that unresolved doubt about the integrity of the seizure operates in the accused's favour.