[ad_1]
SINGAPORE: A man who was acquitted of drug trafficking and later convicted again on appeal has been acquitted in the final decision of the highest court and will not face the death penalty, nine years after the alleged crime occurred.
Nigerian Ilechukwu Uchechukwu Chukwudi faced a trafficking charge of almost 2 kg (1,963.3 g) of methamphetamine that was found in a black suitcase that he took with him from Nigeria to Singapore in 2011.
He was charged with passing the methamphetamine, in two packages, to a woman named Hamidah Awang on River Valley Road.
Four of the five judges in the case found on Thursday (September 17) that Ilechukwu did not know there were drugs in the bag, and discovered that he had been unknowingly “tricked” into carrying drugs.
Only the appeal judge Tay Yong Kwang disagreed, finding that the prosecution had proven his case and said that Ilechukwu was a person who “told a lot of deliberate lies.”
Ilechukwu had originally been tried with Hamidah, and the trial judge cleared Ilechukwu of drug trafficking, which carries the death penalty or life imprisonment, but sentenced Hamidah on a different charge.
Ilechukwu had a second-hand electronics business in Nigeria and had come to Singapore in November 2011 to buy used laptops for sale.
The black bag had been passed to a stranger introduced by a childhood friend and Ilechukwu had been asked to pass it on to someone in Singapore.
When Ilechukwu inspected the luggage bag, he claimed that he only found clothes. The first court that acquitted him found that the drugs were “well hidden.”
Ilechukwu entered Singapore with the drugs and they were only discovered after he handed the bag to Hamidah, who was detained at the Woodlands checkpoint.
The prosecution appealed against Ilechukwu’s acquittal and the Court of Appeal reversed the decision and convicted Ilechukwu in 2015.
POST-TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER
However, at the sentencing stage, “material evidence” emerged showing that Ilechukwu suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) with dissociative symptoms.
A psychiatrist from the Institute of Mental Health discovered that Ilechukwu’s PTSD was the result of childhood trauma he experienced in his hometown of Wukari, Nigeria. He was nearly killed near his mother’s supply store and witnessed the murder of others.
He had a “lasting image” of being chased by his assailants with bladed weapons and recalls “seeing a lot of blood around a well near the store where the bodies were chopped and dumped.”
As a result, Ilechukwu suffered from PTSD symptoms intermittently throughout her life, the IMH psychiatrist discovered.
When Ilechukwu was arrested and later gave statements to the Central Narcotics Office, his symptoms were triggered when he was informed that he was facing the death penalty associated with the trafficking charge.
This condition could have led him to overestimate the threat to his life and led him to lie to save his life and distance himself from the drugs found in his suitcase, the psychiatrist found.
The Court of Appeal that convicted him determined that these lies could only be explained by his guilt. The new evidence showed a different interpretation.
The Court of Appeal then ordered a review of the case in light of the new evidence provided by the psychiatrist who was the prosecution witness.
The defense, consisting of attorneys Eugene Thuraisingam, Mr. Suang Wijaya, Mr. Johannes Hadi and Ms. Jerrie Tan, had lobbied for it to be reviewed.
REVIEW AND AWARD
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, along with Appellate Justices Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash found Thursday that had the evidence on Ilechukwu PTSD been presented to them in 2015, they would not have convicted him.
“Both for (Judge) Phang and myself, who were in the (court) that rendered the (sentencing) decision, if the evidence (in the PSTD) had been before us at that time, we would not have held that the lies and omissions in the plaintiff’s statements tipped the balance and made us overturn the acquittal of the judge, ”Judge Menon said.
“There would have been nothing to tip the balance and the acquittal of the judge would have been allowed to stand.”
Without the adverse inferences based on Ilechukwu’s “lies,” the other evidence was consistent that he did not know there were drugs in the luggage, Judge Menon said.
In a statement to the CNA after the hearing, Ilechukwa’s attorneys said it has been “a long and close pro bono case, involving specialized psychiatric evidence and issues of cross-cultural sensitivities.”
“Had it not been for the fortuitous production of the IMH report, our client would have been sentenced to death or life imprisonment. We are delighted that justice prevailed to acquit our client this morning,” they said.
