PUTRAJAYA, Aug 26 — The Federal Court has upheld the life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane imposed on a lorry driver for trafficking in 845g of cannabis eight years ago.
A three-man bench comprising Court of Appeal President Datuk Seri Abu Bakar Jais alongside Federal Court judges Datuk Nordin Hassan and Datuk Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali dismissed M. Mugunthan’s appeal against conviction and sentence.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Allan Suman Pillai, representing the prosecution, confirmed the court’s decision to Bernama.
In delivering the unanimous decision, Justice Abu Bakar held that the High Court had not made any inconsistent finding concerning Mugunthan’s knowledge of the drugs, adding that care and control of the drugs had been established through affirmative evidence.
He said the judge had also said the concurrent findings of the courts below were supported by the evidence and disclosed no misdirection, perversity, or appealable error warranting intervention by the court.
On August 16, 2023, the High Court found Mugunthan, 46, guilty of trafficking the drugs and sentenced him to life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane.
He was ordered to serve the sentence from the date of his arrest on April 10, 2018.
The offence was committed at a car park of an apartment in Jalan Lengkuas, Shah Alam, Selangor, at 4.35pm on April 10, 2018.
The accused was also found guilty by the High Court on two charges of possessing 1.02g of methamphetamine and 35.96g of cannabis, for which he was sentenced to three years and four years’ imprisonment and five strokes of the cane, respectively.
On July 14 last year, the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal against his conviction and sentence for the drug trafficking charge and upheld the decision of the High Court, leading to today’s appeal at the Federal Court.
Mugunthan had withdrawn his appeal at the Court of Appeal against the convictions and sentences for the two possession charges as he had completed his imprisonment term.
At the Federal Court today, lawyers Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi and Aina Melina Johan represented the accused.
