Amin bin Sayuti v Pendakwa Raya

Appellant(s): Amin Bin Sayuti

Respondent(s):

• Pendakwa Raya
• [Pendakwa Raya]

• YA Datuk Noorin binti Badaruddin
• YA Datuk Mohd Radzi Bin Abdul Hamid
• YA Dato' Sri Latifah Binti Haji Mohd Tahar

• The appellant was arrested at a condominium car park after police found him carrying a blue bag containing 689.9 grams of Methamphetamine, and he was charged under section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952, which carries a mandatory sentence under section 39B(2).
• The appellant's defence was that he was an innocent carrier who had been instructed by a co-accused (with whom he was jointly charged in a separate case, tried together, on which the appellant was acquitted) to retrieve the bag from a car and hand it to passengers in another vehicle, and that he had no knowledge of its contents.
• The High Court convicted the appellant, finding that the prosecution had proven possession and knowledge, invoking the presumption of trafficking under section 37(da)(xvi) of the Act based on the weight of the drugs, and sentencing him to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane.

• Whether inconsistencies in the arresting officer's testimony regarding the exact floor level of the arrest (ground floor versus lower ground floor) were material enough to discredit his evidence and undermine the prosecution's case.
• Whether the appellant's defence of being an "innocent carrier" was a recent fabrication, given that key aspects of this defence (that he handed the bag to specific individuals at the instruction of the co-accused) were never put to prosecution witnesses during cross-examination.
• Whether the appellant successfully rebutted the statutory presumption of trafficking under section 37(da) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 on a balance of probabilities.

• The Court held that discrepancies in witness testimony do not automatically render evidence unreliable; the key test is whether such inconsistencies go to the root of the charge, and here the inconsistency about the exact floor level did not undermine the undisputed fact that the arrest occurred at the specified condominium car park, which was corroborated by other witnesses and documentary evidence.
• The Court found that the appellant's defence was rightly treated as an afterthought, as the specific details of handing the bag to particular individuals in a white Honda CRV were never suggested to prosecution witnesses during cross-examination, and a contrary suggestion (that different persons had carried the bag) had instead been put to one witness, amounting to a material contradiction.
• The Court held the appellant failed to discharge his evidentiary burden under section 103 of the Evidence Act 1950 to rebut the presumption of trafficking, affirmed the trial judge's credibility findings (which benefited from direct observation of witnesses), and unanimously dismissed the appeal, upholding the conviction and sentence.