[ad_1]
SINGAPORE – In an “exceptional case,” a Malaysian drug trafficker escaped from the gallows for the second time on Monday (October 19), after a Court of Appeal of five judges reversed a 2018 decision to convict him on a capital charge.
Instead, 32-year-old Gobi Avedian received 15 years in prison and 10 strokes of the cane, the original sentence handed down by the High Court in 2017.
Monday’s decision focused on the legal position change in a 2019 case, involving Nigerian Adili Chibuike Ejike, in which the high court ruled that the legal concepts of actual knowledge and intentional blindness were “separate and distinct.”
Willful blindness is a legal term for the mental state of a person who suspects the truth but deliberately refuses to investigate further.
Gobi was originally charged with importing 40.22g of heroin after he was caught with the drugs at Woodlands Checkpoint on December 11, 2014.
The former security guard said he was involved in transporting drugs because he needed money to pay for his daughter’s medical expenses.
He first avoided the death penalty in 2017 after a Supreme Court judge accepted his account that he believed he was carrying a mild form of “disco drugs” laced with chocolate, rather than heroin.
Instead, Judge Lee Seiu Kin convicted Gobi of a reduced count of attempted importation of a class C drug and sentenced him to 15 years in prison and 10 strokes of the baton.
The prosecution then appealed, pressing for the original capital charge.
In 2018, a higher court of three judges accepted the appeal and handed down the death penalty after it was determined that Gobi had not rebutted the presumption of knowledge, under Section 18 (1) of the Drug Abuse Act ( MDA).
In 2019, in the Adili case, the Court of Appeals held that the legal doctrine of intentional blindness is not relevant to considering whether the presumption of possession under Section 18 (2) of the MDA has been rebutted.
In February 2020, Gobi filed a request for the court to review its 2018 decision to convict him of the capital charge.
His lawyer, Mr. M. Ravi, questioned the veracity of that decision in light of the subsequent decision in the Adili case.
Mr. Ravi argued that the ruling in Adili’s case should be extended to the presumption of knowledge of the nature of the drugs he was carrying.
Counsel argued that since the prosecution’s case against Gobi at trial was one of deliberate blindness, the prosecution could not have invoked the presumption in the first place.
On Monday, the court, led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, agreed that the Gobi case should be reopened.
“There are legal arguments based on the changes in the law that arose from our decision in Adili on which we can conclude that there has been a judicial error … if our decision on the conviction in that appeal is reconsidered in light of the changes in the law, “the court said.
The court held that Gobi’s failure to rebut the presumption of knowledge could no longer form the basis for his conviction on the capital charge.
The court also determined that Gobi was not intentionally blind to the nature of the drugs.
He noted that Gobi had made some inquiries about the nature of the drugs, but was assured that the drugs “were not serious.”
It overturned Gobi’s conviction on the capital charge and reinstated his initial High Court conviction.
“In the applicant’s own case, he knew that the drugs were illegal and would carry criminal consequences,” the court said.
The court faces two options: the first is to convict Gobi of trying to import a drug that falls into a category that does not carry the death penalty; the second would be not to convict him of any amended charges.
“In our view, the first option should be taken, since the applicant, in his own defense, admitted to having participated in some form of activity that, at a minimum, would involve the importation of a Class C drug.”
[ad_2]
