Public Prosecutor v Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin

JurisdictionSingapore
JudgeTay Yong Kwang J
Judgment Date26 January 2016
Neutral Citation[2016] SGHC 8
CourtHigh Court (Singapore)
Docket NumberCriminal Case No 15 of 2014
Year2016
Published date03 November 2018
Hearing Date19 November 2015,02 December 2015,26 November 2015,24 November 2015,18 November 2015,25 November 2015,17 November 2015
Plaintiff CounselWong Kok Weng and Krystle Chiang (Attorney-General's Chambers)
Defendant CounselMahendran s/o Mylvaganam and Chitra Balakrishnan (Regency Legal LLP), and Christopher Anand s/o Daniel (Advocatus Law LLP)
Subject MatterCriminal Law,Statutory offences,Misuse of Drugs Act
Citation[2016] SGHC 8
Tay Yong Kwang J:

The accused, born on 8 April 1976, was tried and convicted on the following charge (“the trafficking charge”):

That you, SYED SUHAIL BIN SYED ZIN,

on 3rd August 2011, at about 9.50 p.m., in unit #11-234 of Block 686B Choa Chu Kang Crescent, Singapore, did traffic in a controlled drug specified in Class ‘A’ of The First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act (Chapter 185), to wit, by having in your possession for the purpose of trafficking, four (4) packets and one (1) white metal container containing substances, that were analysed and found to contain not less than 38.84 grams of diamorphine, without any authorisation under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under section 5(1)(a) read with section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, and punishable under section 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act, and further upon your conviction under section 5(1)(a) read with section 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act, you may alternatively be liable to be punished under section 33B of the Misuse of Drugs Act.

Three other charges were stood down at the start of the trial:

2nd charge That you, SYED SUHAIL BIN SYED ZIN, on 3rd August 2011, at about 9.50pm, in unit #11-234 of Block 686B Choa Chu Kang Crescent, Singapore, did have in your possession a controlled drug specified in Class ‘A’ of The First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act (Chapter 185), to wit, two (2) packets of granular/powdery substances weighing 6.49 grams, that were analysed and found to contain 0.17 grams of diamorphine, without any authorisation under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under section 8(a) and punishable under section 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.
3rd charge That you, SYED SUHAIL BIN SYED ZIN, on 3rd August 2011, on or at about 9.50 p.m., in unit #11-234 of Block 686B Choa Chu Kang Crescent, Singapore, did have in your possession, utensils used in connection with the consumption of a controlled drug specified in Class ‘A’ of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act (Chapter 185), to wit, one (1) spoon and two (2) syringes, without any authorisation under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under section 9 and punishable under section 33 of the Misuse of Drugs Act.
4th charge (amended) That you, SYED SUHAIL BIN SYED ZIN, on or about the 3rd of August 2011, Singapore, did consume a controlled drug specified in Class ‘A’ of the First Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap. 185) and listed in the Fourth Schedule to the Misuse of Drugs Act as a specified drug, to wit, Morphine, without any authorisation under the said Act or the Regulations made thereunder and you have thereby committed an offence under Section 8(b)(ii) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap. 185) And further that you, before the commission of the said offence, had been admitted to an approved institution, namely, Sembawang Drug Rehabilitation Centre on 26th June 1999 and 13th December 2000, for consumption of Morphine, a specified drug, pursuant to an order made by director of the Central Narcotics Bureau, in Singapore under section 37(2)(b) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap. 185), which convictions had not been set aside, and you are now liable to be punished under Sec 33A(1) of the Misuse of Drugs Act (Cap. 185).
The Prosecution’s case

On 3 August 2011 at about 9.45pm, officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau (“the CNB”) arrested the accused near the traffic junction of Choa Chu Kang North 7 and Choa Chu Kang Drive.1 They escorted him to Block 686B Choa Chu Kang Crescent where they searched him and found a set of three keys from his trousers pocket. The accused was then brought up to unit #11-234 (“the flat”) in the same block of flats.

The CNB officers gained access into the flat using the accused’s keys. They also opened the door of the master bedroom using those keys. The accused was the tenant of the master bedroom in the flat. He lived in that bedroom with his girlfriend. The bedroom had a walk-in wardrobe where the accused stored his belongings.2 When asked if he had anything to surrender, he pointed to the rightmost shelf above the drawers of the wardrobe, ie, the pigeon hole on the right side of the wardrobe (“the pigeonhole”). The following items were inside the pigeon hole: A shoe bag which contained a stack of white envelopes, numerous empty sachets, the empty box of a digital weighing scale and its instruction manual; A white metal container (“the bowl”) containing brownish granular substance and a metal spoon; A dark blue plastic bag containing four plastic packets of brownish granular substances; and A digital weighing scale, a pair of scissors, a roll of masking tape and a red plastic bag which was empty and folded.

In the hanging compartment of the wardrobe above the pigeon hole (ie, the top right section of the wardrobe), there were a red plastic bag which contained one small packet of brownish granular substance, one small packet of brownish powdery substance, one stained metal spoon and four used syringes and their plastic wrappers. A grey plastic bag containing two plastic packets was also found on the floor near the master bedroom door.

The substances inside the bowl and the four packets inside the dark blue plastic bag weighed about 2.21kg. They were analysed by the Health Sciences Authority (“HSA”) and found to contain at least 38.84g of diamorphine (hereafter referred to as heroin) in total. The bowl contained at least 7.80g of heroin while the four packets contained at least 10.96g, 8.10g, 4.36g and 7.62g of heroin. The heroin in the five exhibits formed the subject of the trafficking charge.

During the trial, a question arose over the weight of the drugs in the bowl. They weighed 456.51g at the CNB but only 442.4g at the HSA. Because of the discrepancy of 14.11g, the accused sought clarification on whether the drugs in the bowl were the same drugs that were subsequently analysed by the HSA and found to contain 7.80g of heroin. The accused claimed that the CNB’s weighing scale was calibrated to start from a negative figure equal to the weight of the plastic bag that the drugs in the bowl were emptied into. The plastic bag containing the drugs was then weighed to arrive at the reading of 456.51g. Therefore, he contended, this amount was that of the drugs alone as the weight of the plastic bag had already been accounted for.3

In response, investigation officer Michelle Sim explained that the bowl, the drugs it contained and the spoon were kept inside a Ziploc bag and taken to the CNB. When the exhibits were photographed at the CNB, the bowl and the spoon were removed from the Ziploc bag and placed on a piece of brown paper. The drugs were then poured from the Ziploc bag into the bowl before the photographs were taken.4 After that, the drugs were poured back into the Ziploc bag. The Ziploc bag and the drugs it contained were then weighed to arrive at the reading of 456.51g. As there was no prior calibration of the scale, the reading was that of the bag and the drugs. The bag and the drugs were then put into a larger bag and sent to the HSA.

HSA analyst Wendy Lim confirmed that she received the exhibit as packaged by the CNB.5 She removed the larger bag and weighed the Ziploc bag and its contents, which reflected 457.82g (1.31g more than the CNB reading). She then weighed the Ziploc bag alone and noted that its weight was 15.38g. Therefore, the weight of the drugs alone was about 442.44g. Ms Lim said that the 1.31g discrepancy could be due to the fact that the weighing incidents took place at different locations and times and using different weighing instruments. Having heard the explanations, I was satisfied that there was no break in the chain of custody in relation to the drugs in the bowl and that the drugs weighed were those specified in the CNB’s evidence.

The prosecution relied on seven statements that were made by the accused.6 In a contemporaneous statement made in the flat on 3 August 2011 at about 10.16pm, he said that he had something to surrender when he was asked if he had anything to surrender. After he pointed to the pigeonhole, he was asked what was there. He replied: “everything inside.” He looked nervous and sweated profusely. He also said that the shoe bag had “always been there” when he was asked who owned the shoe bag. He added that he was not feeling well, was suffering from withdrawal and declined to continue with his statement.7 On 4 August 2011 at about 3.25am (during the photograph-taking of the exhibits),8 Michelle Sim recorded an oral statement from the accused in her field book. He allegedly informed her that the drugs in the bowl were for packing and selling. In the cautioned statement on 4 August 2011 at about 3.28pm, he said: “I disagree with the charge above and find it very inaccurate. I could not think of anything else to say as I am feeling unwell.” The trafficking charge then alleged that he possessed for the purpose of trafficking six packets and one bowl weighing 2,237.97g of granular/powdery substances believed to contain diamorphine.

In a long statement recorded on 11 August 2011 at 2.25pm (“the first long statement”), the accused said that he collected two packets of heroin from his drug supplier, Abang. Each packet weighed about one pound. Shortly before his arrest, he sold one packet and poured the second packet of heroin into the bowl with the intention of packing it later. He denied knowledge of the four packets inside the dark blue plastic bag. The two small packets of heroin in the hanging compartment of the wardrobe were for his personal consumption. An extract of the first long statement reads: On 2nd August 2011 at about 7pm or 8pm in the evening, I called my drug supplier Abang on his handphone and ordered 2 ‘batu’ of heroin...

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3 cases
  • Zainudin bin Mohamed v Public Prosecutor
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 12 February 2018
    ...The next case in which acts of division and packing were found to have been committed was Public Prosecutor v Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin [2016] SGHC 8. The police found numerous empty sachets, a digital weighing scale, four packets of diamorphine and a metal container likewise containing diam......
  • Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin v AG
    • Singapore
    • High Court (Singapore)
    • 8 February 2021
    ...SLR(R) 710; [1980–1981] SLR 48 (refd) PP v Ang Soon Huat [1990] 2 SLR(R) 246; [1990] SLR 915 (refd) PP v Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin [2016] SGHC 8 (refd) Quek Hock Lye v PP [2012] 2 SLR 1012 (refd) Ramalingam Ravinthran v AG [2012] 2 SLR 49 (refd) Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin v AG [2021] 1 SLR 809......
  • Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin v Public Prosecutor
    • Singapore
    • Court of Appeal (Singapore)
    • 16 October 2020
    ...at least 38.84g of heroin, which quantity formed the subject of the trafficking charge (see Public Prosecutor v Syed Suhail bin Syed Zin [2016] SGHC 8 (“the GD”) at [4]–[6]). In the applicant’s statements, he claimed that he had collected two packets of heroin from his drug supplier. Shortl......

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