PUTRAJAYA, Aug 27 — A former cook had his conviction for trafficking 7.2051kg of cannabis substituted with a conviction of possession by the Court of Appeal, which sentenced him to 12 years in jail and 10 strokes of the cane.
A three-member bench comprising Justices Datuk Azman Abdullah, Datuk Hayatul Akmal Abdul Aziz, and K. Muniandy set aside the conviction and sentence imposed on Mohd Soleh Mohd Hussin, 40, for trafficking and substituted it with a conviction for possession of the drug.
The court ordered the sentence to run from the date of his arrest on July 29, 2020.
However, the court upheld the accused's conviction and three-year jail sentence for possessing 54 litres of mitragynine (ketum) under the Poisons Act 1952.
Delivering the court’s decision, Justice Hayatul said the court found a misdirection by the trial judge on the burden of proof, which could not be remedied under Section 60 of the Courts of Judicature Act 1964.
On November 7, 2024, the High Court found Soleh guilty of trafficking in the drug and sentenced him to 30 years’ imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane.
He was also convicted of possessing mitragynine and sentenced to three years in prison, with the High Court ordering both sentences to run concurrently from the date of his arrest.
The accused subsequently appealed to the Court of Appeal against his conviction and sentence.
The offences were committed at a house in Jalan Batu Muda 21, Taman Batu Muda, Sentul, Kuala Lumpur at 5pm on July 29, 2020.
According to the facts of the case, the police acted on information and conducted surveillance before one officer knocked on the door several times.
When there was no response, the officer instructed members of his team to break into the house. Upon entering, police found a man in the living room.
A search of the premises uncovered plastic packets containing compressed slabs suspected to be cannabis on the living room floor, a bag containing plastic-wrapped compressed slabs of suspected drugs in an empty room upstairs, and bottles containing mitragynine liquid in the kitchen.
During the proceedings, Soleh’s lawyer Najib Zakaria urged the court to impose a lenient sentence, saying that his client had been in prison for six years and was suffering from chronic skin and nerve conditions.
Also representing the accused were lawyers Shamsul Sulaiman, Ahmad Nabil Abd Rani, and Khor Boon How, while Deputy Public Prosecutor Siti Rafidah Zainuddin appeared for the prosecution.
