The wait is over: Zamri (third from right) and Mohd Shah (third from left) with their lawyers (from left) Selvi, Ho, Haresh and Ramzani after the duo were acquitted at the Muar High Court in Johor.
MUAR: A man who was putting up at a friend’s house here before he was set to board a ferry to Indonesia but ended up in prison for five years for alleged drug trafficking can finally return home now.
Indonesian Zamri Dalit, 51, and his friend, Malaysian Mohd Shah Baba, 49, cried and hugged each other yesterday when the High Court here acquitted them without calling for their defence.
Arrested on July 23, 2019 – a day before Zamri’s planned return home – both men had faced the death penalty if convicted.
Judicial commissioner D. Suria Kumar, in his judgment, said the prosecution had failed to prove that the accused were exclusively in custody and control of the drugs found in the room of a house in Jalan Junir here at 11.35am.
He ruled that there could be the possibility of access by a third party to the said room, and the prosecution had also failed to explain who else had keys to the house.
Zamri and Mohd Shah were charged under Section 39B (1)(a) and 39B (2) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 after they were caught with 1.53kg of methylenedioxy-methamphetamine (MDMA).
Deputy public prosecutor Nur Sulehan Abd Rahman prosecuted the case.
Lawyers Haresh Mahadevan and Ramzani Idris acted for Mohd Shah, while Zamri’s counsels were Selvi Sandrasegaran and Ho Zhi Qian.
