Kuala Lumpur – A Singaporean woman sentenced to death in Malaysia for drug trafficking has been spared the gallows, after the charge against her was reduced to possession instead, an offense, which does not carry the mandatory death penalty in Malaysia. Noor Atiqah M. Lasim, 26, will now have to serve a 12-year jail term instead, after she was caught with 370g of heroin and other drugs in her bag at the Sepang airport budget terminal on Jan 5, 2009. She has maintained all along that she had not known that the bag she was carrying contained drugs. During the Court of Appeal hearing in Putrajaya on Wednesday morning, the prosecution decided not to contest the appeal against the conviction for trafficking. In front of about 10 of Noor Atiqah's family members and close friends, the panel of three judges then decided to reduce the charge to one of possession. They sentenced her to 12 years' jail – a verdict which brought a slight smile to her face. Noor Atiqah could have been jailed for up to 20 years for drug possession. She was spared corporal punishment as women cannot be caned. Her ordeal began three years ago, after a seemingly innocuous agreement to help a friend transport clothes from China to Kuala Lumpur. Before she left for China, she met Ghanaian Nartey Stanley at a McDonald's in Kuala Lumpur's Chinatown, to get a bag to store the clothes. She was arrested with the bag while trying to leave Malaysia for China. Noor Atiqah testified that she did not know what was in the bag, but the High Court rejected her defense in March last year as there was nothing before the judge then to connect her to the Ghanaian. Before the Court of Appeal, however, defense lawyer Gobind Singh Deo produced a detention order detailing how the Home Ministry said Stanley had been operating a drug trafficking syndicate. The police had picked Stanley up in Malaysia for questioning a few hours after Noor Atiqah was detained. Both were initially charged with trafficking. However, they later dropped the charge against Stanley, saying that there was not enough evidence to link him to Noor Atiqah. Stanley was not called up by the prosecution as a witness against Noor Atiqah, nor was he offered to the defense as a potential defense witness. He has since returned to Ghana. When her case went before the Court of Appeal, however, Gobind was given rare permission by the court to introduce fresh evidence. The lawyer produced a detention order from the Home Ministry stating that Stanley had been operating a drug trafficking syndicate, with details that linked him to Noor Atiqah's case. This new evidence probably led to the prosecution's decision not to contest the appeal, Gobind told The Straits Times yesterday. Mohammad Faizal Abdullah, a close friend of the family who was there in court on Wednesday, said Noor Atiqah was “still sad about serving a long sentence, but now at least she has a date to look forward to”. “She has hope now to go home and have her family and her life back,” said Faizal, whose wife managed to give her a hug before she was remanded. The couple had been running a “Save Atiqah” online campaign, raising about S$52,000 (US$41,000) from public donations for her cause. They have also been helping her with legal matters and speaking to the media on behalf of the family. Faizal said Noor Atiqah's young daughter, who is in kindergarten, was sad as she had been praying that her mother would get to come home. Noor Atiqah's mother and three siblings, however, were overjoyed that she is no longer on death row. Although the defense had been pushing for an acquittal, Gobind said he was satisfied with the final verdict considering that they were allowed to introduce additional evidence, which is rarely permitted in criminal law. “We also shouldn't lose focus of the fact that there's a life at stake. Saving that is in itself a victory,” he said, adding that Noor Atiqah's jail term will be backdated to the time she was arrested three years ago. With remission for good behavior, she could be out in another five years. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/7XhMd Tags: Heroin, Malaysia, Noor Atiqah, Singapore, Trail Section: East Asia, Human Rights, Latest News, Women
