630 Malayan Law Journal [2016] 2 MLJ the taxi driver over the wrong destination and as well as over the fares. Finally the taxi driver left him at Melaka after he paid the taxi driver 5,000 Naira for the fares. [11] The appellant further said that the police took him to a police station. At that time he was not conscious. After that the police took him in a patrol car and dropped him in town. He then walked towards a building which looked like a church to him. He had drank a coca cola (dye) and slept there overnight. The next morning he was arrested by the police and brought to a hospital where he excreted the stones he had earlier swallowed while he was in Lagos. A B C [12] At the end of the trial, the learned trial judge found that the defence cannot be believed. The trial judge further found that the appellant’s story about Chibike and precious stones is an afterthought and recent invention. The learned trial judge found that the defence had not raised a reasonable doubt on the prosecution case and failed to rebut the presumption of trafficking on balance of probabilities. The appellant was convicted and sentenced to death. D THE APPEAL E [13] Before us, learned counsel for the appellant canvassed three following grounds in his submissions: (a) that all the written statements tendered by the prosecution were inadmissible in law as they did not strictly comply with the conditions in s 402B of the Criminal Procedure Code (‘the CPC’); (b) that the learned trial judge had descended into the arena of conflict when His Lordship cross-examined the appellant and SP4; and (c) there was no mens rea possession, alternatively, it is a case of passive possession. F G OUR FINDINGS H [14] We found merits in the arguments of learned counsel in respect of the first ground of appeal. Likewise, we also found merits in the complaint by learned counsel in respect of the second ground. Accordingly, we allowed the appeal. We set aside the conviction under s 39B (1)(a) of the DDA by the learned trial judge and we substituted a conviction under s 12(2) of the DDA, punishable under s 39A(2) of the same Act. After hearing submissions from both parties as regard to sentence, we imposed on the appellant a term of imprisonment of 20 years from the date of arrest and ten strokes of whipping. Our reasons are as below. I