A FISHERMAN was sentenced to 12 years in jail and was ordered to be whipped 10 times after he pleaded guilty to an amended charge of possessing 1.3kg of cocaine.

The Court of Appeal’s three-man panel, comprising Justices Kamaludin Md Said, Hashim Hamzah and Mohd Nazlan Mohd Ghazali, ordered Ismetch Mohamad Rosli Rosli to start his jail sentence from the date of arrest, which was November 4, 2016.

Ismetch, 30, had accepted the prosecution’s offer to have his charge reduced from drug trafficking to possession.

He was found guilty and sentenced to death by the High Court for trafficking the drug at a customs inspection area of the Kuala Lumpur International Airport at 6.45pm on November 4, 2016.

Ismetch’s lawyer Gurubachan Singh Johal, in mitigation, asked the court to impose an eight-year jail sentence on his client as he had been in prison for six years, had repented and wants to carry on with his life.

Deputy public prosecutor Asmah Musa, however, said public interest would be best served if the sentencing trend of between 12 and 16 years jail term is applied considering the weight of the drug involved.

A message must be sent to deter a person from committing the offence, she said, adding that the drug in Ismetch’s possession was one of the most expensive type.

Meanwhile, the same court upheld a Myanmar worker’s death sentence for murdering his colleague, Thu Ni, in the worker’s quarters at Syarikat Shin Poly Auto Sdn Bhd, in Jalan Bukit Kemuning, Shah Alam, Selangor between 11.30pm on June 18, 2016 and 1.10am on June 19, 2016.

According to the charge sheet, Htwee Nu Maung committed the offence with another person who is still at large.

Justice Hashim, who delivered the court’s decision, said circumstantial evidence pointed to the appellant’s involvement in the victim’s death, dismissing his appeal against the conviction and death sentence.

Htwee, 42, was found guilty by the High Court on September 10, 2019.

According to the facts of the case, a prosecution witness saw Htwee and another man in a drunk state and their clothes had blood stains. The witness also saw Htwee holding a knife and the victim lying on the floor of the room.

Htwee was represented by lawyer K. Viknesvaran, while deputy public prosecutors Parvin Hameedah and Nurul Farhana Khalid appeared for the prosecution. – Bernama, November 17, 2022.