FACTORY WORKER ESCAPES GALLOWS

PUTRAJAYA: A 32-year-old factory worker escaped the gallows after
the Court of Appeal acquitted him of trafficking in more than 9kg of
cannabis six years ago.

However, Court of Appeal judges Justices Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin,
Abdull Hamid Embong and K.N. Segara unanimously convicted Zulkifli
Arshad for possession and jailed him 18 years and ordered him to be
whipped 10 times on each of the two charges.

They ordered the jail terms to be served concurrently from the date of
his arrest on Jan 27, 2001.

The three-man bench held that the Muar High Court judge had
misdirected himself in law when he failed to invoke the presumption of
trafficking under Section 37 of the Dangerous Drugs Act when
determining that Zulkifli was trafficking in the substance.

On April 23, 2004, the High Court convicted Zulkifli of trafficking in
5.9kg of cannabis in a car beside the Sharp-Roxy factory, Km10 of
Jalan Kluang, Sri Gading, Batu Pahat, Johor, on Jan 27, 2001.

He was also convicted of trafficking in 3.8kg of the same substance in
a house at the same place and date. The High Court sentenced him to
death.

At the outset, Zulkifli's counsel Hasyim Teh Poh Teik submitted that
the trial judge had misdirected himself in law in deciding that his
client was trafficking in the substance as he had wrongly taken into
consideration the combined weight of the cannabis in the two separate
trafficking charges against Zulkifli.

Teh said the Court of Appeal could not correct "such a serious
misdirection of law," adding that its only recourse was to acquit his
client of trafficking and substitute it with possession of the cannabis.