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Overseas video link testimony refused in drug trafficking case
Published on Mar 14, 2012
By K. C. Vijayan
FIVE witnesses in a drug trafficking case have been told they cannot testify by video link from South Korea.
The High Court refused to allow them to give evidence on behalf of Kim Gwang Seok, who faces the death penalty if convicted.
This is because they are based in Seoul, and video link evidence is allowed in criminal cases only when the witness is in Singapore.
Kim, 42, was caught with heroin in his shoes at Changi Airport, but claims he thought he was actually carrying computer chips.
He wants his five fellow South Koreans to support his version of events. However, three of them cannot take time off work to travel to Singapore, one has recently given birth and the fifth is in jail in South Korea.
'The position remains today that a witness in criminal proceedings has to be in Singapore before he or she can testify via video link,' said Justice Tay Yong Kwang, in judgment grounds released yesterday.
Kim's lawyers now plan to ask the Court of Appeal to reverse the judge's decision. The case, believed to be the first of its kind reported here, is expected to clarify this area of the law.
Lawyers say video link evidence from overseas is not allowed in case it is abused, for example, if someone outside the court's jurisdiction makes a false confession to get the accused off the hook.
Kim and two other men have been charged with trying to smuggle 1.5 kg of heroin onto a flight bound for Sydney in 2009. The trio were arrested by Central Narcotics Bureau officers at the departure hall in Terminal 3.
However, Kim says he had no idea his shoes contained drugs. Instead, he claims he had been asked to carry credit card chips by Lee Byong Gyun, who is now serving time in a South Korean prison.
He also argues that Lee's nieces, Ms Kwak Jisuk and Ms Kwak Jihye, carried computer chips in a similar way, along with a man called Im Jongshin. Kim wants these four witnesses to confirm his account, along with the women's mother, Lee Myung Soon.
The lawyers assigned to him, Mr Tito Isaac and Mr Jonathan Wong, argued that his defence would be 'highly prejudiced' if the five did not give evidence. They pointed out that the authorities had arranged for seven witnesses to testify via video link from Singapore in the ongoing case of former Romanian charge d'affaires Silviu Ionescu, who is being prosecuted in Bucharest over an alleged hit-and-run accident in Bukit Panjang.
Justice Tay said Parliament did not intend to change the law on video link evidence, even if other countries had done so. He added that the financial and personal problems that prevented four of the witnesses from coming here were not 'insuperable', and urged defence lawyers to work out a solution with the authorities.
Source: Straits Times © Singapore Press Holdings Ltd
