Lawyer acquitted of drug trafficking charge
sarbans@thestar.com.my
SEREMBAN: The case against a 51-year-old lawyer facing the gallows over an alleged drug trafficking charge was dropped following new development put forward by his lawyers.
As a result, High Court judge Justice Siti Mariam Othman acquitted G. Sivakumar of the charge of trafficking in nearly a kilo of cannabis at a parking lot in front of a house in Taman Desa Seringin in Nilai at 8pm on Oct 14 last year.
The prosecution also dropped the joint charge against his friend P. Sivagami, 39.
Prior to this, lawyers Haresh Mahadevan and Ramzani Idris, in a representation to the AttorneyGeneral’s Chambers, urged the prosecution to withdraw the charges against Sivakumar.
They said Sivagami had admitted that she was the one who kept the package containing the cannabis in the car boot and that Sivakumar had no knowledge of this.
The drugs were found in a Nissan Cefiro with registration number BGN6388.
Sivagami had also claimed no knowledge of the contents of the package, which was allegedly given to her by her employer.
Sivagami was apparently told to pass the package to her employer’s bodyguard, but did not manage to do so as she was arrested.
But yesterday, the court sentenced Sivagami to 12 years in jail on a reduced charge for being in possession of 939g of the said cannabis.
She was further slapped with an additional two years’ jail for having 8.44g of methamphetamine.
She was ordered to serve the sentences concurrently.
DPP Hazeelia Muhammad prosecuted.