PETER CHAN CHIA YIN v Pendakwa Raya (Q-05(SH)-591-12/2023)

The Appellants, Peter Chan Chia Yin and Goh Sie Kiat, were convicted on a charge of trafficking 231.93 grams of methamphetamine with common intention at a house described as No. 62A, Jalan Selangan Batu, Kuching, which offence under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, read together with section 34 of the Penal Code, was said to have been committed on 24 December 2019 at about 2300hrs.

The charge reads: “That you together, on 24th December 2019, at about 2300 hrs, at the house No. 62A, Jalan Selangan Batu, in the District of Kuching, in the State of Sarawak, in furtherance of the common intention of you all, to wit 231.93 grammes of Methamphetamine, thereby you have committed an offence under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and punishable under subsection 39B(2) of the same Act, read together with section 34 of the Penal Code.”

At the end of the case for the defence, the Appellants were convicted of the offence under section 39B(1)(a) and sentenced to life imprisonment, which is 30 years imprisonment under section 3 of the Criminal Justice Act 1953 and section 57 of the Penal Code.

The Appellants were also ordered to undergo 12 strokes of whipping.

The Appellants have each filed a separate appeal against both conviction and sentence which were heard together and dismissed on 18 May 2026 with broad grounds. For convenience, the Appellant Peter Chan Chia Yin will be referred to as the 1st Appellant, while the Appellant Goh Sie Kiat will be referred to as the 2nd Appellant.

We now provide the full grounds for our decision.

Off the bat, the Appellants attacked the charge, contending that it was bad in law because the word “trafficking” was omitted in the charge. They also argued that the charge was bad in law because it used the word “together” and “common intention” in the same breath. In elaboration, it was suggested that these words imported distinct legal requirements which sowed confusion.

The learned trial judge (“LTJ”) was not persuaded that the omission of the word “trafficking” in charge was fatal, expressing the view that the mention of section 39B(1)(a), the relevant statutory provision, in the charge sufficed to alert the Appellants to the gravamen of the charge.

The LTJ referred to PP v Che Ahmad Shafie [1988] 1 CLJ Rep 265, a decision of the Supreme Court, to hold that citation of the relevant statutory provision suffices for notice.

As for the use of the word “together” in the charge alongside the words “common intention,” the Appellants were not misled. Reliance was placed on section 156 of the Criminal Procedure Code which provides that an error is only material if the accused was misled, and Section 422 of the Criminal Procedure Code, which allows such irregularities to be cured if no failure of justice was caused.

So much for contents of the charge.

In a drug trafficking case such as the present, the prosecution had to establish:

the identity and weight of the drugs as set out in the charge;

(ii) the accused persons had possession of the drugs;

(iii) the accused persons were trafficking the drugs on the date, and at the time and place as particularised in the charge; and

(iv) they did so in furtherance of a common intention.

To prove the identity and weight of the drugs, the prosecution relied on the evidence of Azizah Binti Abdul Aziz (PW3), the chemist from Jabatan Kimia.

PW3 testified that she received the drug exhibits from the police with their seals intact. She subjected the seized drugs to colour testing, including the Simon's test which is used as a test for secondary amines such as methamphetamine, as well as the Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometer (GCMS) and Gas Chromatography-Flame Ionization Detector (GC-FID).

PW3 then recorded the gross weight of the drug exhibits without the plastic packaging as 385.91 grams and as 409.33 grams with the plastic packaging, and the net weight of the methamphetamine as 231.98 grams in her report dated 23 January 2020 which was marked as exhibit P9.

Learned counsel for the Appellants highlighted the difference in the gross weight of the drug exhibits with the plastic packaging as recorded by PW3 (409.33 grams) and the police (403.00 grams), and tried to cast doubt on the identity of the drugs.

The LTJ was of the view that there was a simple explanation for the difference in gross weight. The police used their own weighing machine at the police station, whereas PW3 used a different, specialised weighing machine in the laboratory. He noted that unless two different weighing machines are calibrated to exactly the same standard, their results will not necessarily tally.

He relied on Loh Kah Loon v PP [2011] 5 CLJ 345, a decision of the Federal Court, to hold that such difference would not cast reasonable doubt if the chain of custody is intact.

The LTJ did not find any break in the chain of custody in the drugs from the time they were seized, to the time they were handed over to the Investigation Officer (PW7), to the time they were delivered to PW3 who received them with the seals intact. The drug exhibits were identified by these witnesses during the trial, and marked.

As for possession, the prosecution primarily relied on the evidence of ASP Jong Lak Kho (PW4) who led the raiding team, as well as the evidence of Detective Corporal Abdul Yaccub Bin Sahari (PW5), and SM Razali Bin Osman (PW6) who were both members of the raiding team.

Acting on a tip-off, PW4 had assembled a raiding team which, upon entering the house at No. 62A, Jalan Selangan Batu, Kuching, through an unlocked front door, caught the Appellants red-handed, handling and packing the subject drugs on a table in a storeroom on the ground floor.

PW4 testified that the Appellants looked shocked and nervous.

On the table in front of the Appellants were 10 transparent plastic packets containing a crystalline substance, 1 transparent plastic packet containing 8 transparent plastic packets containing a crystalline substance, 1 transparent plastic packet containing 35 transparent plastic packets which in turn contained a crystalline substance, as well as several empty transparent plastic packets.

There was also a digital weighing scale on the table, along with a pair of scissors.

As against the evidence of PW4, PW5, and PW6 that the Appellants were seen handling and packing the drugs in their direct line of vision, the Appellants argued that PW1 - the 1st Appellant’s wife who went by the mononym “Alicia”) - gave evidence that the Appellants were in the living room, not the storeroom, when the police entered.

PW1 testified that after hearing a loud sound indicating the front door had been opened, she went down to the middle of the staircase. From that position, she claimed to see the police with her husband (the 1st Appellant) and the 2nd Appellant standing in the living room at the side of a table near the family altar. She asserted they were being body-searched and interrogated there for about 20 minutes, while 2 to 3 other police officers entered and searched the storeroom.

PW1’s narrative was central to the defence’s argument that the Appellants were not caught red-handed in the storeroom handling and packing drugs, but were instead detained in the living area while the police discovered the drugs in their absence.

PW1 further testified that two men had gone to the house to repair a toilet and had rested in the storeroom until approximately 8pm.

The defence argued that the prosecution is bound by the evidence of witnesses that it calls, and if that evidence is unfavourable to the prosecution's case, the defence is entitled to use it to its advantage.

The defence cited, among other authorities, Lim Guan Eng v Public Prosecutor & Other Appeals [1998] 3 CLJ 769 for the principle that “a party is bound by the evidence of witnesses whom he calls in proof of his case,” and PP v Jamal Sahmad & Anor [2006] 8 CLJ 428 for the principle that where a witness for the prosecution gives evidence to its detriment, the defence is entitled to make use of that evidence.

The LTJ dealt with these arguments raised by the Appellants by conducting a maximum evaluation of witness credibility and relying on factual logic rather than accepting the testimony at face value.

While it is settled law that the evidence of interested witnesses cannot be rejected merely on the basis of family ties or without reason – see Balasingham v Public Prosecutor [1959] 1 MLJ 193 – the LTJ considered that PW1 (as the wife of the 1st Appellant, and as an intial suspect) had a clear motive to tailor her testimony to support her husband's defence.

He found the evidence highlighted by the defence implausible and illogical.

He also found it incredulous that PW1 could have stood in the middle of the stairs for some 20 minutes without being spotted by the raiding team.

He further found that PW1 gave no explanation on the interval of time from when she first heard the noise downstairs and the time she went down to the middle of the staircase.

He noted that based on testimony of the raiding team members, PW1 was actually found and detained inside her bedroom upstairs, following their entry into the house. It makes sense that the police had gone quickly upstairs so as to thwart any escape.

The LTJ accordingly preferred the evidence of PW4, PW5, and PW6, which he described as consistent, unshaken, and credible.

We now turn to the contention by the defence that the prosecution had also failed to establish a prima facie case at the end of its prosecution since there were no fingerprints and DNA evidence linking the Appellants to the subject drugs.

The learned LTJ held that forensic evidence like DNA and fingerprints is of great significance primarily when identity is in doubt. Here, PW4, PW5 and PW6 gave direct evidence that the Appellants were caught red-handed. Since their evidence was found to be credible, there was no need for forensic evidence such as fingerprints and DNA evidence.

Next, the defence had also argued that PW4 or other members of his team had failed to administer the statutory caution under section 37B(1)(b) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952. As a result, the prosecution had failed to establish a prima facie case against the Appellants. It was highlighted that PW4 admitted under cross-examination that he did not administer the statutory caution, and he had asked the Appellants questions such as "siapa punya barang" and “mana lagi?” to which they replied “barang dikongsi sama.”

While the LTJ did not deal with this issue directly, he did not rely on the purported admissions in holding that the prosecution had established a prima facie case against the Appellants at the end of its case. He relied on the direct eyewitness testimony of the raiding team, and the evidence of the weighing scale, scissors, empty plastic packets, and multiple plastic packets containing crystalline substances were found to be methamphetamine by PW3 after conducting well-established tests.

Following PP v Mohd Radzi Abu Bakar [2006] 1 CLJ 457, the LTJ had subjected the prosecution’s evidence to maximum evaluation.

He found, in line with the Court of Appeal decision in Seyedalireza Seyedhedayatollah Ehteshamiardestani v PP [2014] 4 CLJ 406, that, at the end of its case, the prosecution had established actual possession of the drugs by the Appellants and that triggered the statutory presumption of trafficking under section 37(da) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952.

The Appellants were found to have acted in furtherance of a common intention to traffic the drugs because they were observed by the raiding team to be packing the drugs together, with paraphernalia - such as the digital weighing scale, a pair of scissors and empty as well as filled plastic packets with crystalline substances which were later analysed and ascertained to be methamphetamine – on the table directly in front of them.

Applying the principle as stated by the Federal Court in Krishna Rao A/L Gurumurthi v PP and Another Appeal [2009] 3 MLJ 643, the LTJ inferred that their joint participation in the act of packaging established a meeting of minds that could be formed even on the spur of the moment.

Moving on to the defence stage, the 1st Appellant (DW1), his sister Joey Chan Chia Yi (DW2) and his mother Lim Sok Hwa (DW3) gave evidence on oath, while the 2nd Appellant (DW4) was the sole witness in his defence.

The Appellants testified that they were sitting in the living room near the family, having snacks and playing games on their mobile phones, when the police kicked and pushed open the front door with considerable force. They also testified that they were brought into the storeroom from the living room, and were in the living room when the raiding team entered the house.

The 2nd Appellant said that he saw DW3 open the door of her bedroom on the ground floor to look at what was happening, before the 1st Appellant and he were brought into the storeroom.

DW3 said she was in her bedroom when she heard a loud noise in the living room, and peeked through her bedroom door to see unidentified men detaining her son and the 2nd Appellant in the living room. She observed these men carrying out body searches on the Appellants and handcuffing them, while 2 to 3 men entered the storeroom. She closed the door and remained in her room.

As for DW2, she also heard loud noises and having been alerted by her mother DW3, she also peeked from the door. She testified she saw the Appellants handcuffed in the living room, and observed men going into the storeroom.

In sum, the defence narrative, including the evidence of PW1, ran counter to the raiding team’s testimony but was rejected as the LTJ who was of the view that the natural reaction of occupants hearing such a noise would be to investigate immediately rather than staying hidden.

The court's duty at the end of a criminal trial is laid down by section 182A(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code which provides: "At the conclusion of the trial, the Court shall consider all the evidence adduced before it and shall decide whether the prosecution has proved its case beyond reasonable doubt."

The thrust of the defence, as mentioned earlier, is that the raiding team did not see the Appellants in the storeroom handling and packing the drugs but arrested the Appellants in the living room.

According to the defence, it was only after the arrest that the raiding team took the Appellants to the storeroom where the drugs which were found there had left behind by others, possibly two men or renovation workers, who had access.

We digress momentarily to deal with the charge which the defence had argued was bad in law. We are unable to accept that the LTJ had erred in any way in applying the law, though we are obliged to point out that the charge was actually amended to include the word “trafficking” at the start of the trial on 4 May 2021. Although the charge as orally amended was not marked as an exhibit, both counsel took no objection to the oral amendment, following which the amended form was read out and explained to both the Appellants. They indicated that they understood it, and again pleaded not guilty.

As such, the Appellants were not in any way prejudiced or misled by the initial omission.

As noted by the LTJ, the specific reference to section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 made the pith and substance of the charge clear.

Taking the Appellants’ argument to the highest, there are saving provisions in the Criminal Procedure Code which the LTJ took into account.

Moreover, the Appellants were ably represented by counsel who admirably left no stone unturned in the representation of their clients.

Back to the mainstream. At the end of the trial, the LTJ carried out his bounden duty to consider all of the evidence and he decided that the prosecution had proven its case beyond reasonable doubt.

The LTJ evaluated and preferred the evidence of the raiding team who stated they had a direct line of sight into the storeroom and caught the Appellants red-handed at the table where the drugs and paraphernalia were placed. He found no merit in the defence contention that the drugs were left behind in the storeroom by others, and that they were in a black plastic bag in the storeroom.

We are mindful that in Lee Ah Seng & Anor v PP [2007] 5 CLJ 1, the Federal Court, held: “[9] The approach to be taken by an appellate court when dealing with a trial court's assessment of credibility of witness is well-established by high authorities. The credibility of a witness is primarily for the trial judge. An appellate court should always be slow in disturbing such finding of fact arrived at by the judge who had audio-visual advantage of the witness, unless there are substantial and compelling reasons for disagreeing with the finding. Discrepancies will always be found in the evidence of a witness but what a judge has to determine is whether they are minor or material discrepancies. It would be wrong to say just because a witness may have contradicted in his evidence or even told lies on one or two points, his evidence should be totally rejected. In the final analysis it is for the trial judge to determine which part of the evidence of a witness he is to accept and which to reject (see Herchun Singh & Ors v. Public Prosecutor [1969] CLJU 52; [1969] 1 LNS 52; [1969] 2 MLJ 209 FC; Dato' Mokhtar Hashim & Anor v. Public Prosecutor [1983] 2 CLJ 10; [1983] CLJ (Rep) 101 FC; Lai Kim Hon & Ors v. Public Prosecutor [1980] CLJU 197; [1980] 1 LNS 197; [1981] 1 MLJ 84 FC; Che Omar bin Mohd Akhir v. Public Prosecutor [1999] 2 CLJ 780 CA). It is not the function of an appellate court to make primary findings of facts (see Public Prosecutor v. Mohd Radzi Abu Bakar [2005] 6 MLJ 393; [2005] 6 AMR 203; [2006] 1 CLJ 457 FC) (emphasis added).”

Although the defence has cited a litany of authorities such as PP v Ralph Lee Zhen Jie [2018] MLRHU 21 to support their contention that others had access to the store room, including the two men who had gone to the house to repair a toilet and had rested in the storeroom until almost 8pm, it is clear that the LTJ had also considered but preferred the evidence of the members of the raiding team as well as that of PW7, the IO.

The LTJ had weighed their evidence against PW1’s testimony which reveal that she did not know the names and address of the two men who had gone to repair the toilet and rested in the storeroom (where the drugs were found) until almost as late as 8pm.

The defence witnesses expanded on PW1’s testimony, referring to the two men as renovation workers, with the 1st Appellant describing the toilet as dilapidated while DW2 and DW 3 described it as broken or damaged.

In contrast, PW7 gave evidence that the toilet was functioning, and that there were no construction materials, such as cement bags or sand, in front of or inside the house when he visited for it in the course of his investigation.

We do not think that the LTJ can be faulted for accepting PW7’s evidence while rejecting the evidence of the other witnesses on the state of the toilet when he had the audio-visual advantage of observing the witnesses, tested against the other evidence.

Notably, when the defence was called, all 4 defence witnesses knew one of the men as Freddy. The Appellants allege that the drugs may belong to Freddy, a friend of the 1st Appellant who had been engaged as a renovation worker to repair the toilet. The 2nd Appellant claimed that he was at the house only to collect RM200 which Freddy owed him, since he did not stay at the house.

However, and this is crucial, the Appellants failed to put the "Freddy" story to the material prosecution witnesses (the raiding officers) during cross-examination. The defence is to be considered an afterthought in the light of what Abdul Hamid Ebong JCA (as His Lordship then was) had to say in Megat Halim Megat Omar v. PP [2009] 1 CLJ 154; [2008] MLJU 647: "Although in our criminal jurisprudence, there is no burden on an accused person to prove his innocence but merely for him to raise a reasonable doubt as to his guilt, it is trite that his defence should be put to the prosecution at an early stage during the prosecution case. Failure to do so may move the trial court to dismiss a particular line of defence as an afterthought, or a recent invention as happened in this case."

Equally important is the inescapable conclusion that there was no means of verifying the existence of Freddy such as his full name, or address, or contact number. The name “Freddy” only surfaced after the Appellants were ordered to enter their defence, and cannot be equated to a sufficient Alcontara notice. See Alcontara A/L Ambross Anthony v. Public Prosecutor [1996] 1 CLJ 705; [1996] 1 MLJ 209.

The LTJ discounted the suggestion that someone could have gone to the house and left the drugs there as far-fetched, in the absence of any explanation.

There was no discernible motive or reason for the police to falsely implicate or frame the Appellants.

Reference may be made to Sri Ganesh A/L Java Balan v. PP and Other Appeals [2022] 2 CLJ 546; [[2021] MLJU 2642, where Ravinthran Paramaguru JCA, in delivering the judgment of the Court of Appeal, held: "Whilst we acknowledge that frame up of innocent citizens by the police cannot be discounted in some cases, the court must give weight to that defence only on credible evidence that suggests it and not on mere speculation; otherwise prosecution of criminal cases in this country would be frustrated at every turn (see PP v. Mohamed Ali [1962] CLJU 129; [1962] 1 LNS 129; [1962] 1 MLJ 257)."

Reference may also be made to Dickson Levy a/l Maria George v. Public Prosecutor [2018] CLJU 135; [2018] 1 LNS 135: [2018] MLJU 98. where the Court of Appeal, citing the Singapore case of Goh Han Heng v. Public Prosecutor [2003] 4 SLR 374, was of the view that: "the accused must adduce sufficient evidence of this motive so as to raise a reasonable doubt in the prosecution's case. Only then would the burden of proof shift to the prosecution to prove that there was no such motive. To hold otherwise would mean that the prosecution would have the burden of proving a lack of motive to falsely implicate the accused in literally every case, thereby practically instilling a lack of such a motive as a constituent element of every offence."

For completeness, we will also mention Sahrul Mazlee Mohd Khalid v PP [2022] CLJU 4; [2022] 1 LNS 4 where the Appellant's defence to the 1st amended charge was that he was not holding the plastic bag with the drugs in it. SD2 testified that he did not see the Appellant carrying anything when coming out of the house. SD2 said that he saw the plastic bag containing the drugs on the roof of a Viva car. However, the leader of the raiding team SP8 was found to be a credible witness who was steadfast in his testimony.

The Court of Appeal found no reason to interfere with the finding by the trial judge in relation to the 1st amended charge as follows: "...during the course of evidence I did not find anything that suggested that any members of the raiding party knew the accused or vice versa so that would exclude any obvious motive on the part of the police raiding party to want to frame up the accused by giving evidence that the accused was carrying the white plastic package seized from his hand when he was in fact not doing so."

There was no reason to suppose that PW4, PW5, and PW6 - who are police officers with no interest to serve or axe to grind – had fabricated evidence to secure a conviction.

It is well established that “the evidence of police witnesses on any material fact in issue should not be dismissed, unless it borders on the incredible and ludicrous." See the decision of the Court of Appeal in Ramli Abd Rahman & Anor v PP [2011] CLJU 1725, and Patmanathan Logannathan v. PP [2016]

The Appellants were clearly in control and custody of the drugs and must have known of the drugs as they were caught handling and packing them, what more with drug paraphernalia on the table directly in front of them.

Pertinently, in Ch'ng Ah Teong v. PP [2014] MLRAU 95, the Court of Appeal held: “[13] In the circumstances aforesaid the second ground of appeal relating to the argument that there was failure to establish exclusive custody and control of the drugs and the appellant's knowledge of the drugs is a non-starter because the appellant was caught red handed holding the package in which the drugs were found and in the absence of a reasonable explanation the only inference that could be drawn was that the appellant had knowledge of the drugs and had custody and control of the drugs.”

The LTJ cannot be said to be wrong in finding that the Appellants had actual possession of the drugs, especially when they looked shocked and nervous upon being caught red-handed. See section 8 of the Evidence Act 1950.

There is no merit in the defence contention that a statutory admission was not administered to the Appellants when they were arrested. The prosecution did not at any stage seek to rely on any of the so-called admissions which were elicited from PW4 under cross-examination. Instead, the prosecution was relying on the raiding team’s direct eyewitness testimony that the Appellants were caught in the act, with the drugs and paraphernalia on the table directly in front of them.

The inferences of a common intention on the part of both Appellants to traffic the subject drugs were correctly drawn from the direct eyewitness testimony of the raiding team members.

In so far as PW1’s evidence and that of the other prosecution witnesses is concerned, the LTJ was right in law to assess which witness and which part of the evidence to believe and uphold.

As held by Raja Azlan Shah FJ (as His Majesty then was) in Public Prosecutor v. Datuk Haji Harun bin Hj Idris [1977] 1 MLJ 15, 19: “There is no rule of law that the testimony of a witness must either be believed entirely or not at all. A court is fully competent, for good and cogent reasons, to accept one part of the testimony of a witness and to reject the other.”

In this regard, we also find it necessary to refer to Abinash Chandra v. Emperor (1936) 37 Cr. LJ 439, 442 where it was held: “The witness Kipah is the wife of the first accused and she had to be called by the prosecution to fill up the chain of events in that case. Answers elicited from her cross-examination by the defence has to be scrutinised with some care. As a wife testifying in a serious case against her husband, she could not be expected to be entirely immune from being unbiased, or in any event, uninterested. Moreover, when there are other evidences to the contrary, this court is not bound to accept each and every word in her evidence. If what was suggested is to be followed in the unqualified form, the function of a trial judge or jury will become obsolete and such function could be better decided by computer. There is nothing to deter the trial judge or jury picking or choosing any piece of evidence from a witness while rejecting others which he or they felt not credible enough. After all a witness is capable of saying both truths and untruths. If, for any good reason, the court feels that part of his evidence should be preferred to the other, then it is at liberty to accept that part and reject the others. Indeed this has to be so when dealing with human as opposed to mechanical factors.”

We are of the view that there is no immutable requirement that there must be re-examination or an impeachment when some part of a prosecution witness’s testimony is adverse, because ultimately, the court has to evaluate the evidence as a whole under section 182A(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code.

With that said, we now consider the Appellants’ argument that there was an absence of fingerprint or other evidence to incriminate the Appellants, and that the LTJ had erred in brushing that aside.

We have to give the argument short shrift. In Mogan Raj Ravi & Anor v. PP & Other Appeals [2020] 3 CLJ 240, the Court of Appeal held that fingerprint evidence is only corroborative evidence which assumes significance where there are questions about the identity of the culprit. See also the decision of the Federal Court in PP v. Mansor Bin Mohd Rashid & Anor [1996] 3 MLJ 560.

Here, there is no doubt about the identity of the Appellants in view of the direct eyewitness testimony of the raiding team members.

As the learned DPP succinctly put it: “Forensic evidence would only have been the servant of this case, not its master. Its absence changes nothing.”

Before we conclude, there was a complaint about the lapse of time between the High Court’s sentencing and the provision of the full grounds of judgment, that is, about 2 years and 4 months.

In Amathevelli P Ramasamy v PP [2009] 3 CLJ 109, the Federal Court held that a delay in delivering the full grounds of judgment does not by itself vitiate the decision of the judge.

An Appellant who purports to be prejudiced must go one step further to show how he has been prejudiced.

We have combed through the Record of Appeal, and detect no basis for supposing that there was any lapse of memory or lack of judicial appreciation on the part of the LTJ who in fact wrote a comprehensive judgment spanning a hundred pages where he analysed the evidence meticulously.

As ably highlighted by the learned DPP, “the trial judge's core findings that the Appellants were present in the storeroom with the drugs, that the drugs were confirmed as Methamphetamine, that the quantity exceeded the trafficking threshold, and that the "Freddy" defense was a recent invention are all anchored in objective evidence that is wholly independent of the LTJ’s recollection of the witnesses' demeanor years after the trial. A delay in writing up the grounds does not impair a judge's ability to state what the undisputed physical evidence showed.”

In sum, the LTJ correctly found that the accused had failed to rebut the statutory presumption of trafficking on a balance of probabilities, and to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case in other material respects.

Despite the valiant and tenacious attempts of learned counsel for the Appellants, we find the conviction safe.

The sentence passed, in lieu of the death sentence, was a sentence of life imprisonment and 12 strokes of whipping. As the law now stands, it is the only sentence permitted in lieu of the death sentence.

In the upshot, both appeals stand dismissed. Dated the 7th day of July 2026 -sgd- (Lim Hock Leng) Judge Court of Appeal Malaysia Counsel for the (1st) Appellant Criminal Appeal No.: Q-05(SH)-591-12/2023 Mohamed Ossman B. Ibrahim [Osman Ibrahim Co. Advocates] Counsel for the (2nd) Appellant Criminal Appeal No.: Q-05(SH)-592-12/2023 Gerald Empaling Donald (Steven Beti together with him) [Sapiee Donald & Co] Counsel for the Respondent Criminal Appeal No.: Q-05(SH)-591-12/2023 and Q-05(SH)-592-12/2023 DPP Noor Farhana Binti Adham [Jabatan Peguam Negara (AGC)]