Teacher escapes gallows for drug trafficking

 By Olivia Miwil - September 2, 2021 @ 3:37pm

Counsel Datuk Seri Rakhbir Singh helped a Malaysian teacher escaped gallow for being charged with drug trafficking. - Pic courtesy of Rakhbir Singh.

KOTA KINABALU: A 48-year-old teacher from an international school in the peninsula has escaped the gallows for drug trafficking.

After submissions from defence counsel Datuk Seri Rakhbir Singh yesterday, the Federal Court allowed an appeal for Suhailah Abdullah, who had been sentenced to death by hanging in 2017.

The appeal was made via Zoom before Court of Appeal president Tan Sri Rohana Yusuf, Datuk Abdul Rahman Sebli and Datuk Seri Hasnah Mohammed Hashim.

Rakhbir said his client was tricked into believing two Nigerians in New Delhi, who handed over to her a luggage bag containing only new clothes to be handed over to their Nigerian friend in Malaysia, as they were in the cloth business.

"Believing and after having checked the bag, piece by piece, Suhailah decided to assist them to carry the luggage bag.

"However unbeknown to her, secretly hidden and planted within the floors of the bag were the drugs," he said in a statement.

Suhailah, who broke into tears during the session, thanked the panel of federal judges for giving her a new lease of life and thanked her lawyer who fought this case for her over the last eight years.

Her convictions on drug trafficking by the Court of Appeal and the High Court were set aside and the charges reduced to only one of possession under s. 39A(2)(r) of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 and imposed a 10 year imprisonment from the date of her arrest.

Suhailah, who already served the imprisonment, is set to walk out free immediately from the Kajang women's prison.

On May 27, 2013, Suhailah was found at the Kota Kinabalu International Airport (KKIA) with methamphetamine weighing 959.5 grams in the luggage bag that she was carrying.

The teacher was charged at the Kota Kinabalu High Court in 2013 and her trial was heard before Justice Chew Soo Ho.

At the end of the prosecution's case, Chew ruled that he did not find a case of trafficking against Suhailah as she was only in possession and found a case of possession against Suhailah convicted and imprisoned her for 14 years from date of arrest.

However, the prosecution appealed to the Court of Appeal who heard the appeal on July 18, 2016 and called upon Suhailah to enter her defence on the original charge of drug trafficking.

By that time, Chew had retired and Suhailah's defence was heard by a different High Court Judge, who on June 23, 2017 convicted Suhailah of drug trafficking and sentenced her to death by hanging.