Apex court frees ex-college student on death row for drug trafficking

PUTRAJAYA – A former college student who had been on death row for five years for drug trafficking won his second appeal today to be freed.

A three-man Federal Court panel led by Chief Justice Tun Tengku Maimun Tuan Mat acquitted and discharged V. Sathya after allowing his appeal to set aside his conviction and death sentence for the offences.

The other two judges were Federal Court judges Datuk Nallini Pathmanathan and Datuk Mohamad Zabidin Mohd Diah.

Sathya’s appeal against his conviction and death sentence was reheard by the Federal Court today after the apex court allowed his review application on June 15 this year.

Sathya, 30, was convicted by the high court on November 27, 2017 on two counts of trafficking 1.8kg and 2.2kg of methamphetamines, which were concealed in two luggage bags. He was sentenced to death for the offences. 

Sathya, a former risk management student at a private college in Kuala Lumpur, was accused of committing the offences at the then low-cost carrier terminal near Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang, Selangor on September 26, 2013.

He subsequently lost his appeals in the Court of Appeal and Federal Court, prompting him to file a review application in the apex court on the grounds of miscarriage of justice.

In the court’s decision today, Tengku Maimun said that the non-consideration of Sathya’s caution statement and his sister’s evidence by the court had occasioned an instance of material prejudice, resulting in a miscarriage of justice.

She said this was a statutory breach under Section 182A of the Criminal Procedure Code.

“We find merits in the appeal. On the totality of the evidence, we find the conviction unsafe and we therefore allowed the appeal to set aside the conviction and sentence,” she said.

Sathya was represented by lawyers Datuk Hisyam Teh Poh Teik, M. Athimulan, Salim Bashir, Abdul Rashid Ismail, Low Wei Loke, and Kee Wei Lon while deputy public prosecutors Manoj Kurup, Datuk Mohd Dusuki Mokhtar, and Ng Siew Wee appeared for the prosecution. – Bernama, October 13, 2022