SIBU: A car accessories trader will know his fate on October 1 after he was found guilty of four related drug trafficking and possession by the High Court here today.
In convicting John Ting Sing Fong, 40, from Jalan Deshon, Justice Wong Siong Ting found that the prosecution had proved its case beyond a reasonable doubt for all of the four charges against him at the end of defence stage.
The accused was charged with trafficking in 70.78 grammes of methamphetamine (MDMA) under Section 39B(1)(A) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, and punishable under Subsection 39(B) (2) of the same Act which carries a death sentence or life imprisonment if convicted.
He also faced three other charges of possession of 26.47 grammes of ketamine; possession of 119.59 grammes of ketamine; and 1.55 grammes of MDMA, framed under Section 12(2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and punishable under Section 12)3) of the same Act which provides for up to five years or fine of RM100,000 or both.
In his ruling, Wong pointed out that the accused has failed to cast any reasonable doubt of his possession of the drugs in relation to all the four charges and also failed to rebut, on a balance of probabilities, the presumption of drugs trafficking.
“Additionally, he has failed to raise any reasonable doubt on the prosecution’s case in other material respects. Accordingly, the Court convicts the accused of all four offences as he has been charged,” he said.
Earlier in his submission in reply at the end of the defence stage, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP), Mark Kenneth Netto, argued that after perusing the evidence, he said that the accused has failed to cast a reasonable doubt to the prosecution’s case for various reasons.
Among others, there was no break in the chain of evidence merely because the weighing process was not conducted at the crime scene itself.
He pointed out that there was no ground to support any findings that the integrity of the exhibits was compromised merely because “police evidence bags” were not used during the raids.
He asserted that there was no evidence to show that the raiding officer had maliciously amended the search list by inserting an inaccurate gross weight of the impugned drugs that were seized.
The discrepancy, he stated, as to the date when the investigator conducted the test fitting process only went to the root of whether or not the said process was conducted.
He stressed that it did not extend to anything more than a break in the chain of evidence since all the drug exhibits seized were properly marked before being sent to the chemist for analysis.
“The information provided by the informant to the raiding officer was not hearsay since it was not to establish the truth of the matter asserted but merely as information disclosed as part of the police investigation,” Mark further stated.
