Public Prosecutor v Saridewi Bte Djamani and another

• Jurisdiction: Singapore
• Judge: See Kee Oon J
• Judgment Date: 14 September 2018
• Neutral Citation: [2018] SGHC 204
• Court: High Court (Singapore)
• Docket Number: Criminal Case No 28 of 2018
• Published date: 20 September 2018
• Year: 2018
• Hearing Date: 09 May 2018,28 May 2018,10 May 2018,02 May 2018,05 June 2018,11 May 2018,17 April 2018,06 July 2018,08 May 2018,27 June 2018,11 April 2018,12 April 2018,13 April 2018
• Plaintiff Counsel: Marcus Foo and Lim Shin Hui (Attorney-General's Chambers)
• Defendant Counsel: N K Rajarh (M/s Straits Law Practice LLC) and Luo Ling Ling (M/s RHTLaw Taylor Wessing LLP),Masih James Bahadur (M/s James Masih & Co) and Dhanaraj James Selvaraj (M/s James Selvaraj LLC)
• Subject Matter: Criminal Law,Statutory offences,Misuse of Drugs Act
• Citation: [2018] SGHC 204

See Kee Oon J: Introduction

The two accused persons were jointly tried in respect of drug trafficking offences. The first accused person, Saridewi Binte Djamani (“Saridewi”), was charged under s 5(1)(a) read with s 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap 185, 2008 Rev Ed) (“MDA”) for having in her possession six packets and seven straws containing a total of not less than 30.72 grams of diamorphine, which is a Class A controlled drug under the First Schedule to the MDA. The second accused person, Muhammad Haikal Bin Abdullah (“Haikal”), was charged under s 5(1)(a) of the MDA, for delivering two packets containing a total of not less than 28.22 grams of diamorphine to Saridewi.

At the conclusion of the joint trial, I was satisfied that the Prosecution had proved the charges against the respective accused persons beyond reasonable doubt. Upon delivering brief grounds for my decision to find them guilty, both accused persons were convicted and sentenced on 6 July 2018. I now set out the grounds of my decision in full.

Facts

A statement of agreed facts was tendered pursuant to s 267(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cap 68, 2012 Rev Ed) (“CPC”) at the beginning of the trial. The evidence pertaining to the operations carried out by the Central Narcotics Bureau (“CNB”), the arrests of the two accused persons, the seizure of exhibits, the reports produced by the Forensic Response Team (“FORT”), the analyses of the quantity of diamorphine and deoxyribonucleic acid (“DNA”) by the Health Sciences Authority (“HSA”) were largely uncontroversial and undisputed.

On 17 June 2016, at about 3.35pm, Haikal drove a motorcycle bearing registration number JHH 4015 (“the Motorcycle”) into the carpark of Block 350 Anchorvale Road, Singapore (“Block 350”). After parking, he retrieved a white plastic bag from the Motorcycle and proceeded to the lift of Block 350. He took the lift up to the 17th floor. He met Saridewi on the 17th floor and handed a white plastic bag to her. In return, Saridewi handed him an envelope, with the marking “10.000” on it, to him. The movements of Haikal and Saridewi using the lifts of Block 350 at the material time were captured clearly on the CCTV cameras in the lifts, and this was not disputed when the camera footage was viewed in the course of the trial.¹ The two then parted ways; Haikal proceeded back to the Motorcycle while Saridewi went back to the unit where she resided, located at #16-143 of Block 350 (“the Unit”).

The CNB had received information of the drug transaction that was to take place at Block 350 that afternoon and various CNB officers were deployed at the vicinity in a covert operation. Shortly after riding off from Block 350 on the Motorcycle, Haikal was intercepted and placed under arrest by CNB officers at the junction of Anchorvale Road and Anchorvale Street. The officers recovered in his possession, inter alia, an envelope with the marking “10.000” on it (later marked as “MHA-1”) found to contain cash totalling SGD$10,050 and a brown envelope (later marked as “MHA-2”) found to contain cash totalling SGD$5,500. Three mobile phones found in his possession were seized and sent to FORT for analysis.

Meanwhile, CNB officers arrived at the Unit. Saridewi, upon hearing movements and voices outside her door and suspecting the presence of CNB officers, threw various items out of the kitchen window of the Unit.² Before the CNB officers could cut through her metal grille gate to effect entry, she opened the door to allow the CNB officers to enter the Unit. In the Unit, various exhibits including packets of crystalline substance, numerous glass tubes, a slab of tablets, numerous empty packets and straws, several unused envelopes, one digital weighing scale, one heat sealer, and a notebook were seized. From the construction site adjacent to Block 350, the CNB officers recovered a white “SKP” plastic bag (later marked as “A1”) containing another white “SKP” plastic bag (later marked as “A1A”), which contained two plastic packets (later marked separately as “A1A1” and “A1A2”), each containing one packet of granular/powdery substance (later marked as “A1A1A” and “A1A2A” respectively). On the ground floor of Block 350, CNB officers recovered, inter alia, two stained packets (later marked as “B1”), some loose brown granular substance (later marked as “C1”), one packet (later marked as “D1”) containing eight packets of crystalline substance (“later marked as “D1A”), one packet containing three packets of granular/powdery substance (“later collectively marked as “D2A”), one packet containing two white straws and five blue straws each containing granular/powdery substance (later collectively marked as “D3A”), and one digital weighing scale. Four mobile communication devices were seized from Saridewi, later marked as “SBD-HP1”, “SBD-HP2”, “SBD- HP3” and “SBD-TAB” respectively, and sent to FORT for analysis. It was not disputed that the integrity and custody of all the exhibits seized from Haikal and Saridewi were not compromised in any way at any point in time.

The HSA analysed the drug exhibits and found the quantity of drugs in the exhibits as follows:

S/N	Exhibit Marking	Quantity of Drugs
1.	A1A1A (1 packet)	Not less than 9.39 grams of diamorphine
2.	A1A2A (1 packet)	Not less than 18.83 grams of diamorphine
3.	C1 (loose granular substance)	Not less than 1.77 grams of diamorphine
4.	D2A (3 packets)	Not less than 0.55 grams of diamorphine
5.	D3A (7 straws)	Not less than 0.18 grams of diamorphine

The total amount of diamorphine contained in the exhibits listed above was not less than 30.72 grams.

The DNA analyses by the HSA showed, among other things, that Haikal’s DNA profile was found on the exterior and interior surface of exhibit “B1” (the two stained packets).

Seven investigation statements were recorded from Haikal and Saridewi respectively. There was no challenge as to the voluntariness of statements, but both accused persons challenged the accuracy of certain portions of their statements.

Prosecution’s Case

The main thrust of the Prosecution’s case was that Haikal had passed a white “SKP” plastic bag containing the two packets of diamorphine to Saridewi on 17 June 2016 on the 17th floor of Block 350 in exchange for the envelope containing SGD$10,050. This drug transaction arose because Saridewi had placed an order of diamorphine with her supplier, whom she knew as “Bobby” or “Brown”, on 16 June 2016, the day before the transaction.

The Prosecution submitted that there was no break in the chain of exhibits – the white “SKP” plastic bag retrieved along with the two packets of diamorphine inside (A1, A1A1A and A1A2A) was the exact one that Haikal had delivered to Saridewi. It could not be seriously contended that someone else in Block 350 who was alerted to the presence of the CNB had thrown down exhibit A1, because the CNB operation was covert. To reduce the risk of the operation being uncovered, unmarked vehicles were used and CNB officers were dressed in civilian clothes.³

Prosecution’s case against Saridewi

The Prosecution’s case against Saridewi was that she was in possession of the six packets and seven straws containing a total of not less than 30.72 grams of diamorphine, and that she knew of the nature of the drugs. Pursuant to the presumption of trafficking in s 17 of the MDA, she was presumed to be in possession of the diamorphine for the purpose of trafficking. The Prosecution submitted that she had failed to rebut the presumption of trafficking with her defence of diamorphine consumption, because the evidence showed that she was not an abuser of diamorphine at the material time at all.⁴

In relation to the statements recorded from Saridewi, the Prosecution submitted that they were accurate and weight should be placed on them accordingly. The Prosecution submitted that the opinions of Dr Julia Lam (“Dr Lam”), the defence psychologist, were flawed. Dr Lam opined that Saridewi “might not have the mental ability to give an accurate version of events during the statement taking process because of her mental conditions” and that Saridewi was suffering from persistent depressive disorder and severe amphetamine-type substance use disorder.⁵ The Prosecution took the position that Saridewi was not suffering from drug withdrawal at the time when the statements were recorded, and that she was not suffering from persistent depressive disorder.⁶ Further, the evidence showed that there was no substantial impairment of her mental state when the statements were taken.⁷

Prosecution’s case against Haikal

The Prosecution submitted that Haikal was presumed to know the nature of the substance he had delivered to Saridewi pursuant to s 18(2) of the MDA, and that he was unable to rebut the presumption on a balance of probabilities. In support of their argument, the Prosecution pointed out that Haikal had stated in his cautioned statement that he knew what he had passed to Saridewi was “drugs”,⁸ and had also furnished the contact numbers of one Kunjai and one Abang as being related to “drugs”.⁹ In addition, Haikal had delivered the same substance to Saridewi on five or six occasions, and the circumstances of the handling of the substances on each occasion were highly suspect.¹⁰ Moreover, Haikal earned RM500 for each delivery.¹¹

At the close of the Prosecution’s case, the Defence made no submission. I was satisfied that a prima facie case had been established to warrant calling for the defence of both accused persons. After I administered the standard allocution, Saridewi elected to give evidence in the English language. She was one of two defence witnesses, the other being Dr Lam. Haikal elected to give evidence in the Tamil language, and was the only witness for his case.

Saridewi’s Defence

Saridewi’s defence was that a substantial portion of the...