Drug trafficker gets rare retrial
Posted: 30 November 2011 2043 hrs
SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal ordered a retrial into a case of a 32-year-old Malaysian drug trafficker sentenced to death, citing the findings of the judge in the lower court to be "problematic" and his reasoning "unclear".
In setting out its reasons for ordering a retrial, the Court of Appeal also set out the scope of the judicial duty to give "reasoned decisions".
In the case, Thong Ah Fat allegedly drove into Singapore in January 2009 with 142.1g of heroin in his possession.
Thong's subsequent defence was that he thought that he was carrying methamphetamine, or "Ice", and claimed that he had involuntarily given a statement to the authorities.
The trial judge in his judgment of five paragraphs did not believe Thong's account of the statement because "it was neither convincing nor coherent".
But the Court of Appeal was "unable to affirm or overrule the lower court judge's decision as we do not clearly understand how he arrived at certain primary findings of fact that led to his rejection of the Appellant's defence".
The appeals court added that the present proceedings relate to a capital charge and the judicial duty to give full reasons is therefore "even more compelling".
- CNA/fa
