AIZUDDIN BIN AZIZAN v Pendakwa Raya

Case Significance

Instructive on appellate review of a joint drug-trafficking trial under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, including the sufficiency of the chain of evidence, witness credibility, and the limited value of fingerprint evidence where identity is undisputed.

This Court of Appeal decision concerns an appeal against conviction and sentence for drug trafficking, heard jointly with the appeal of a co-accused whose case had been tried together with the appellant's in the High Court. The appellant had been charged under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, punishable under section 39B(2), with trafficking in 487.6 grams of cannabis at a car park in Kuala Lumpur, and after a full trial the High Court found him guilty, convicted him and sentenced him to life imprisonment from the date of arrest together with 15 strokes of the rotan. The two cases had been heard jointly on the prosecution's application under section 170 of the Criminal Procedure Code, and the standard applied at the close of the prosecution case was that under section 180(1) of the Code. On appeal the appellant contended that his defence had not been sufficiently considered by the trial judge, that the trial judge had erred, that there was a break in the chain of evidence, and that discrepancies affected the credibility of the prosecution witnesses, such that the conviction and sentence were unsafe and appellate interference was warranted. The court, comprising Haji Azman bin Abdullah, Azmi bin Ariffin and Hayatul Akmal binti Abdul Aziz JJCA, dismissed the appeal. It addressed the arguments on the chain of evidence and the credibility of witnesses and found no merit in them, and on the fingerprint point it held, following PP v Mansor Md Rashid & Anor, that where the appellant's identity was undisputed and there was evidence of the sale transaction, the absence of fingerprint evidence on the drug wrappings assumed little value and was at most merely corroborative. Concluding that there was no appealable error in the High Court judge's decision and no reason to disturb the findings of fact, the court was satisfied that the conviction was safe, unanimously affirmed the conviction and sentence, dismissed the appeal and also dismissed the prosecution's cross-appeal. The judgment is instructive on appellate review of a joint trafficking trial and on the sufficiency of the chain of evidence and witness credibility.