Tawau court jails man 30 years for trafficking 26 kg of cannabis
On 27 February 2025, the Tawau High Court sentenced unemployed Utuh Derman Isim, 47, to 30 years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane for trafficking 26,215.3 g of cannabis at Bandar Sri Indah in September 2022, after Malaysia's abolition of the mandatory death penalty for the charge.
On 27 February 2025, High Court judge Datuk Duncan Sikodol in Tawau, Sabah, sentenced Utuh Derman
Isim, 47, to 30 years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane for trafficking cannabis.[1][2]
The court had convicted Isim of possessing 26,215.3 grams of cannabis at the staircase of a
building in Bandar Sri Indah at about 5 p.m. on 12 September 2022.[1][2]The charge under
Section 39B of Malaysia’s Dangerous Drugs Act carried a mandatory death sentence or life
imprisonment; after abolition of the mandatory death penalty, the deputy public prosecutor urged a
hanging while the defence asked for leniency as a first offender supporting his mother.[1]
Sikodol ordered the prison term to run from Isim’s arrest date on 12 September 2022.[1]
Case data
Every number and detail the sources state, with the sources that state it.
On 19 October 2026 the Sibu High Court sentenced Tiong Soon Hieng, 41, to life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane for trafficking 5,081.06 g of cannabis. Judge Wong Siong Tung declined the death penalty and dated the term from his arrest on 6 January 2023 outside a coffee shop in Bintangor.
Cannabis 5.081 kgPrison life imprisonment and 12 strokes
Kuala Lumpur High Court on 29 September 2026 sentenced Dasham Novada Wickramathunga, 33, to 10 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane after he pleaded guilty to an alternative charge over about 2.57 kg of cannabis found at a Jalan Ipoh residence in April 2024.
S. Mohan, 38, and Ahmad Shamil Abdul Rashid, 28, were sentenced to 30 years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane for trafficking 139 kg of cannabis from a Bangsar car park in 2022. The judge found the case proven beyond reasonable doubt; the prosecution had sought the heavy term over the quantity.
Malaysia's Federal Court reinstated the trafficking convictions and 30-year sentences of Azril Azhar Ahmad and Zulfattar Md Ridzuan for 264.36 g of cannabis, after the Court of Appeal had reduced the charge to possession. Both had been released in February 2026.