Nachilongo Doreen
v. PP
400
[2014] 5 MLRA
had arranged for the flight and hotel for her. Initially she had brought a small
bag with her but after she went shopping with Natasha, her clothes could no
longer fit into the small bag. Natasha then gave her a bigger bag, P17.
[13] The bag P17 was not locked. In Johannesburg, the bag was scanned at
the airport prior to it being checked in and nothing suspicious was detected in
P17. She departed from Johannesburg to Kuala Lumpur on 23 February 2011
and she reached KLIA at about 6.00am. At KLIA, she was detained by the
Immigration Authority for about eight hours. She was only cleared at about
2pm. She then went to an office at KLIA where she had to fill up a form before
the Management handed over the bag P17 to her.
[14] The learned trial judge had in her mind the principle in Mat v. Public
Prosecutor [1963] 1 MLRH 400 that the story of the defence need not be true or
be believed. The learned trial judge considered the defence of the appellant that
she came to Malaysia to look for job opportunities and that within the eight
hours gap before the appellant collected bag P17, someone could have opened
the bag and placed the drugs inside it.
[15] The following is the finding of the learned trial judge on the defence of
looking for a job:
“3. If the accused really wanted to look for a job in Malaysia, why would
she spend a lot of money for flight ticket and other expenses, to travel
from Zambia to Malaysia without any preparation for job hunting, while
she could save time and cost by, eg surfing the internet, make an online
application or apply in writing. It is unreasonable for the accused to
claim that she did not know how to do a search in the internet while at
the same time she claimed to have graduated from a teaching institution
and comes from a middle class family;
4.
What made the accused’s story more improbable is that she claimed to
be not proficient in English. However, amongst the items found in her
bag (P17) were notebooks with her name written in good English by
the accused herself. When the learned Deputy Public Prosecutor asked
the accused to read the notebooks, the accused showed displeasure and
reluctantly read the notebooks;
5.
...
6.
The accused said that if she did not succeed in securing any job in
Malaysia, her second choice was to enroll in a local college. However, she
admitted that she did not bring any document to support her educational
background or her result transcript;
7.
...
8.
The accused planned to stay in Hilton Hotel during her visit to Malaysia.
When the accused was arrested, she only had an equivalent sum of
RM860.00 on her. Why would the accused choose to stay in a five star
hotel and how was she going to pay for her expenses while she was in the
process of job hunting;
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