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(The Malaysian Insider) The Federal Court freed a Hong Kong man today, overturning his death sentence for alleged drug trafficking and ruling that police fabricated evidence against him.
A three-judge panel of the Federal Court of Appeal ruled there was insufficient evidence to hang Chan King Yu, who was arrested for alleged possession of methamphetamine eight years ago while on a business trip in Malaysia. "I'm happy. I don't know what to say," Chan, 37, who also holds a British passport, told reporters after his handcuffs were removed. "I just want to go back home fast. I stayed here so long," said Chan, a truck driver and part-time bartender. He was sentenced to death by the High Court in 2002 after prosecutors said police found more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of the drug in his hotel room in Kuala Lumpur during a raid two years earlier. Chan's lawyer, Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, argued that police framed his client by breaking into his room and planting the drug. The three-man bench presided by Justices Datuk Abdul Aziz Mohamad, Datuk Hashim Yusoff and Datuk Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin, in a 2-1 majority, acquitted and discharged Chan after holding that therewere glaring discrepancies in the prosecution's case. Justices Zulkefli and Hashim ruled that Chan had raised a reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case while Abdul Aziz dissented. Chan, who worked as a driver in Hong Kong, was found guilty of trafficking in the syabu or methamphetamine at a room of Nova Hotel in Jalan Alor, Bukit Bintang, Kuala Lumpur, at 9.20 pm on June 19 2000 by the High Court on May 2 2002 and sentenced to death. His appeal to the Court of Appeal was unsuccessful and the case was brought up to the Federal Court. Justice Zulkefli said Chan, at the most, was only an innocent carrier and he accepted Chan's defence that he had no knowledge of the drugs because he had claimed that the three plastic bags (containing stainless steel cylinders with the drugs) found in the hotel room he had occupied belonged to one Man Chai and that he (Chan) genuinely believed that the plastic bags contained tools. “From the evidence unravelled in court, it is clear that Chan's defence was not a bare denial but an explanation indicating that the alleged drugs could have belonged to Man Chai and Man Chai could have been the trafficker,” Zulkefli said. Zulkefli also said there was justification to find that two raids were conducted by the police that day, where the raiding police team had first entered Chan's room in his absence and, as Chan had contended, planted the drugs. Zulkefli said that based on evidence, he was of the view that the raiding party had intentionally destroyed crucial evidence to cover up the first raid conducted in the absence of Chan to plant the drugs and implicate him. Chan had claimed that there was no necessity for the raiding policemen to damage the lock of the hotel room door because they could have used the emergency key. He had alleged that the reason they damaged the lock was to intentionally permanently destroy information registered in the lock as to how many entries were made to the room. (The door of the room could only be opened with a card key.) Justice Abdul Aziz, however, accepted the prosecution's version that only one raid was conducted.
Chan's version of the story was that he came to Malaysia upon his boss's request to see Man Chai to collect money from various people in Kuala Lumpur and Johor Baharu. Chan was doing a part-time job running a pub belonging to his boss. He claimed that Man Chai had met him at the airport and made all
arrangements. Chan, who was represented by Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah, claimed that Man Chai has also asked him to pick up the cylinders (containing the drug) and that he obeyed and brought them to the hotel room without looking at what they contained. Meanwhile, outside the court, Muhammad Shafee said Malaysia should reconsider the imposition of capital punishment.
“The whole world now is changing that pattern for various reasons. Firstly, it is a cruel and unusual punishment. It is a global view now. Secondly, you can be wrong and you cannot reverse your decision because you have already hanged the person. “Whereas, when a man is serving life imprisonment, you can still find new evidence to prove his innocence and you can still get him out and compensate him. But if he is dead, you can do nothing,” he said. The third reason he cited was that, internationally, it was difficult to seek mutual assistance from other countries to extradite a person facing the death sentence as the countries opposed to capital punishment would not assist in the extradition. - Agencies
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