MAN SOBS AS HE ESCAPES THE GALLOWS AFTER 11 YEARS IN PRISON

PUTRAJAYA, July 22 (Bernama) -- An Indonesian man, who had been on death row
for 11 years for a drug trafficking offence, broke down in tears after the
Federal Court pronounced him a free man Wednesday.

Agus Agil, 48, a carpenter from Bali, left his wife and two children in May
1998 for a holiday in Malaysia but was apprehended by police at the then Sultan
Abdul Aziz Shah International Airport in Subang when departing for home.

He claimed that the methamphetamine which was found concealed on both his
thighs underneath his trousers was for his own consumption.

However, the High Court and Court of Appeal applied the presumption of
trafficking under the Dangerous Drugs Act for amounts exceeding 50 grammes and
sentenced him to death for the offence.

On July 22, the Federal Court allowed Agus's appeal to set aside the death
sentence and instead jailed Agus five years after substituting the trafficking
charge with one of possession.


Agus walked out a free man on July 22 as the jail term was to run from
the date of his arrest on May 16, 1998. He was seen sobbing as he embraced his
counsel T.Vijayandran.

Justices S. Augustine Paul, Zulkefli Ahmad Makinudin and
Mohd Ghazali Mohd Yusoff held that the failure to conduct a chemical
analysis on Agus to certify whether he was a drug abuser was fatal to the
prosecution's case. A forensic pathologist, Dr. Om Prakash Murthy, had testified
as a defence witness that an abuser could consume five to 15 times per day of
methamphetamine by consuming, inhaling or smoking it, which could be detected by
conducting a chemical analysis on the blood and urine.

However, this was not done on Agus the moment he told the police that he
was an abuser.

Agus was charged in the Shah Alam High Court with two counts of trafficking
in 450gm of the drug at Terminal 1 of the airport at 6.20pm on May 16, 1998, and
510gm at the Damansara police station lock-up at 11.10pm the same day.

At the end of the prosecution's case, Agus was ordered to make his defence
on the first charge but was sentenced to four years jail after the High Court
reduced the second charge to one of possession.

Unhappy with the reduction, the prosecution appealed to the Court of Appeal
which then remitted the case back to the High Court for Agus to make his defence
on the second charge.

At the end of the defence case, he was acquitted and discharged on the
second charge.

Meanwhile, Agus appealed to the Court of Appeal after he was found guilty on
Dec 9 2005 on the first charge and sentenced to death sentence. He took the case
to the Federal Court after his appeal was unsuccessful.

-- BERNAMA