[ad_1]
PETALING JAYA: A Malaysian security guard sentenced to death for drug smuggling in Singapore escaped from the gallows a second time after the republic’s Court of Appeal overturned his conviction.
However, Gobi Avedian, who had smuggled the drugs to help pay for his daughter’s operation, was found guilty of a reduced charge for attempted drug importation, the CNA reported.
He was sentenced to 15 years in prison and 10 strokes of the cane.
In its decision, the court found that the prosecution had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the 32-year-old, who claimed not to know that the packages he was carrying contained heroin, had been “intentionally blind.”
Gobi had smuggled the drugs, laced with chocolate, into Singapore “eight or nine times” and was paid RM500 for each delivery. He was arrested in 2014 and charged with importing 40.22 g of heroin.
However, the High Court judge cleared Gobi of the capital charge and narrowed it down to an attempted drug import in 2017.
The following year, the prosecution appealed the case and the Court of Appeal convicted Gobi on the original capital charge.
But the Court of Appeals found inconsistencies between the prosecution’s case at trial and its case on appeal regarding Gobi’s knowledge of the nature of the drugs.
“The prosecution’s case at trial was one of intentional blindness, but their case on appeal was known to man. The court determined that this change hurt Gobi, ”CNA reported.
“Willful blindness” is a term used to describe a situation in which a person seeks to avoid civil or criminal liability for an unlawful act by intentionally remaining unaware of the events that would make him or her responsible or implicated.
“The doctrine of intentional blindness is justified by the need to deal with accused persons who attempt to escape liability by deliberately avoiding actual knowledge,” the CNA quoted Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon.
The court, according to the portal, also found that the prosecution had not tested this element.
Gobi, he said, had received separate assurances from an individual known only as Vinod and a second person that the drugs were “disco drugs” and “not very dangerous.”
And when Gobi inspected the drugs, he saw that they appeared to have been mixed with chocolate.
The prosecution, the court said, had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that, despite this, Gobi suspected that he had not been informed of the true nature of the drugs.
“Therefore, the court determined that Gobi was not intentionally blind to the nature of the drugs,” the CNA reported.
