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Man who was given death sentence for drug trafficking acquitted after appeal

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A Malaysian, who was convicted of drug trafficking and given the mandatory death penalty in 2020 via remote hearing amid the Covid-19 pandemic, can now walk free after he was acquitted of the offence following an appeal.

Mr Punithan Genasan, then 37, was accused of working together with two men – V. Shanmugam Veloo and Mohd Suief Ismail – to traffic pure heroin, also known as diamorphine.

Mr Punithan was alleged to have introduced Shanmugam, who is Malaysian, to Suief at the West Coast McDonald’s carpark on Oct 12, 2011, to facilitate an impending drug transaction.

On Monday, Singapore’s Court of Appeal, comprising Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon as well as Justices Andrew Phang and Tay Yong Kwang, came to a decision to acquit Mr Punithan as there was a reasonable doubt on whether this alleged introductory meeting took place that morning.

Delivering the grounds of decision, Justice Tay said: “As this was the link which the prosecution had to prove to sustain the charge against the appellant because the alleged common intention to traffic in drugs stemmed from that meeting, we found the charge not proved beyond reasonable doubt. We therefore allowed the appeal and acquitted the appellant accordingly.”

Sixteen days after the alleged introductory meeting, Shanmugam drove into Singapore to meet Suief, a Singaporean.

Shanmugam also had in his possession 10 packets of a powdery substance, later found to contain at least 28.5g of diamorphine.

After these two men were caught, they were convicted in 2015. Shanmugam, then 30, was then sentenced to life imprisonment with 15 strokes of the cane while Suief, then 46, was sentenced to death.

In the course of investigations, Shanmugam identified Mr Punithan as the purported mastermind behind the drug transaction that took place on Oct 28, 2011.

Mr Punithan was later arrested in Malaysia and taken to Singapore on Jan 21, 2016. 

Following his trial, which started in 2018, he was found guilty of playing a role in drug trafficking and given the death sentence. He then appealed against his conviction and sentence.

Justice Tay said that the central question in this appeal was whether there was such a tripartite meeting on Oct 12, 2011, because that was the link alleged between Mr Punithan and the drug transaction involving the couriers – Shanmugam and Suief – that took place 16 days later.

He also said that there were discrepancies in evidence as to the date and the time of the alleged meeting.

For October 2011, Shanmugam was in Singapore on 1, 12, 18, 24, 25 and 28 of that month. According to Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) records, he was in Singapore from 7.24am to 9.36am on Oct 12, having entered and later exited through the Woodlands Checkpoint.

 Meanwhile, for October 2011, Mr Punithan was in Singapore only on Oct 11 between 3.10pm and 10.47pm and on Oct 12 from 7.04am to 12.19pm.

Despite this, Shanmugam and Suief had stated at various times that the alleged introductory meeting took place in either the afternoon or evening of a particular day some time in October 2011.

Justice Tay stressed that the only common date Shanmugam and Mr Punithan were in Singapore was Oct 12, 2011.

On that day, Shanmugam left Singapore by 9.36am while Mr Punithan did so by 12.19pm.

Justice Tay said: “We did not know... why the couriers stated in their 2011 investigation statements that the alleged introductory meeting took place in the afternoon or in the evening when it was obvious from the ICA travel movement records that the only time that the meeting could have taken place was in the early part of the morning of (Oct 12, 2011).

“Accordingly, there remained a lingering reasonable doubt as to the time of the alleged Introductory meeting and therefore a reasonable doubt about whether the couriers were indeed testifying about the meeting of (Oct 12 2011).”

He added that the decision of Mr Punithan’s appeal would have no effect whatsoever on the couriers’ cases as the pair were indeed found with drugs in their possession and were in the process of distributing them.

For the appeal, Mr Punithan was represented by a team led by Senior Counsel N. Sreenivasan.

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