PUTRAJAYA, June 20 — A businessman escaped the gallows today after the Federal Court commuted his death sentence to 30 years in prison for trafficking 9.528kg of cannabis.
The three-judge panel, headed by Justice Datuk Zabariah Mohd Yusof, upheld Mohammad Firdaus Mohsin’s drug trafficking conviction and dismissed his appeal against it.
However, when delivering the court’s decision, Justice Zabariah set aside the death sentence imposed on Firdaus and commuted it to 30 years in prison.
The 40-year-old was also ordered to be given 12 strokes of the rotan.
The other two judges presiding were Datuk Harmindar Singh Dhaliwal and Datuk Abdul Karim Abdul Jalil.
On December 3, 2021, the Shah Alam High Court convicted Firdaus of drug trafficking at 10pm on March 28, 2017, along Jalan Bukit in front of the Kajang KTMB train station in Hulu Langat, Selangor.
On August 2, last year, the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction and death sentence.
According to the case facts, a police officer approached Firdaus and asked him to open his bags, leading to the discovery of several slabs of compressed dried leaves in one of them, which were later confirmed by the Chemistry Department to be cannabis.
In his defence, the accused claimed that the bag did not belong to him but to an Uber driver. He said that he was taking care of it while waiting for the Uber driver to park the car.
He claimed he travelled from Penang to Kuala Lumpur to attend an event and was waiting for his uncle to pick him up and take him to his house in Sungai Ramal, Kajang.
During the trial, the Uber driver in question, Mohd Sabri Salleh, testified that he received a booking from Firdaus through the Uber app to send the latter from KL Sentral to the Kajang KTM station.
He said he saw the accused carrying the bags and placing them beside himself in the back seat of the car.
Deputy public prosecutor Zulkpli Abdullah appeared for the prosecution, while Firdaus was represented by lawyers Muhammad Rafique Rashid Ali and Nur Mustahir Md Nor.
— Bernama
