On 25 November 2021 a three-member Court of Appeal panel in Putrajaya set aside the conviction and death sentence of Mohammad Habibul Hassan Khan, a 26-year-old Bangladeshi engineering student, for trafficking 3,875.66 grams of cannabis.[1][2] The panel, led by Justice Hanipah Farikullah with Justices Che Mohd Ruzima Ghazali and Mariana Yahya, held that the appeal had merit because the prosecution had failed to prove the element of knowledge.[1][2]
The bag holding the drugs had been found in his hostel room, but Habibul said it belonged to another student, Jawad, who lived outside the university and died by suicide a day after Habibul was caught with the bag.[1][2] The trial judge had brushed this aside as bare denial and an afterthought.[1][2] Justice Hanipah also ruled the trial judge had erred over Habibul’s alleged confession to his hostel warden Shazereen Kamaruddin, finding a misdirection because the judge never evaluated whether the confession was actually made.[1][2] His counsel had argued that Shazereen’s evidence was uncorroborated, while the prosecution said there was overwhelming evidence of custody, control and knowledge.[1]
Habibul had appealed against the Shah Alam High Court’s decision of 10 April 2019 sentencing him to death for trafficking the drugs in his hostel room at a university in Semenyih on 10 December 2017.[1][2]