The charge against the accused is as follows:

"That you, on November 22, 1982 at about 8.30 a.m. at Jalan Station in front of Alor Setar Railway Station, in the District of Kota Setar, in the State of Kedah, did on your own behalf traffic in dangerous drug, to wit, 409.3 grammes of cannabis, in contravention of section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drugs Act (1952) (Revised 1980) and that you have thereby committed an offence punishable under section 39B(2) of the same Act (Act 234)."

The case for the prosecution is quite straight-forward. On November 22, 1982, the police set up an ambush. The ambush party comprised Insp. Mohd. Nawawi who was the leader of the ambush party and three other police officers, namely, D/Corp. Idrus bin Jaafar, PW3 D/Const. Ibrahim bin Hj. Sapeh, PW5, and D/Sgt. Abd. Hasir. The party arrived at the ambush place at about 8 o'clock that morning and Insp. Nawawi, PW4, with D/Sgt. Hasir positioned themselves near the Cathay Theatre which was about half a mile from the Alor Setar Railway Station. PW3 and PW5 positioned themselves near the canteen adjacent to the entrance of the said railway station. At about 8.30 a.m., PW3 and PW5 both saw the accused approaching the road in front of the said railway station at a distance of about 500 feet. When the accused came nearer they saw that he was carrying a white sling plastic bag, P3. The bag was slung over his shoulders and when he had walked about 20–25 feet past the spot where PW3 and PW5 were standing, these two officers went after him and upon PW3 identifying himself as a police officer to the accused and at the same time asking him to hand over the bag, the accused refused to hand it over to him. Instead the accused said to PW3: "Tiada apa-apa", indicating that there was nothing in the bag. However, PW3 snatched the bag from him and at that time the accused looked pale and he appeared to be nervous. On opening the bag, PW3 found a newspaper package inside a pink carrier plastic bag hidden in P3. Upon opening the newspaper package, PW3 found eight thin plastic wrappers containing brown paper rolls, P6A-H. As he suspected that the paper rolls contained cannabis, he thereupon arrested the accused and told PW5 to handcuff him. Thereafter, he informed Insp. Nawawi, PW4, by walkie-talkie about the arrest and the said Insp. Nawawi arrived at the scene about 5–10 minutes later. PW4 again checked the contents of P3 in the presence of the accused and then took him together with P3 and its contents in a car to the Anti-Narcotics Division at Taman Lumba Kuda. D/Sgt. Hasir and PW3 went together with Insp. Nawawi and the accused in the car. On arrival at the Anti-Narcotics Division at the Taman, the contents of the bag were taken out and PW3 and D/Sgt. Hasir counted the number of brown paper rolls in the presence of the accused and there were 770 rolls. Thereafter, PW4 lodged a report, Alor Setar Police Report 11585/82, and after making the report he questioned the accused. As a result of the questioning, the accused took Insp. Nawawi and the two police personnel to a house where one Noor Azlan bin Osman was residing. The police arrested the said Noor Azlan and another person by the name of Bakree bin Jamal.

The last prosecution witness in the main trial was Noor Azlan bin Osman, PW7 ("Noor Azlan"), the same person who was arrested by PW4 as a result of his questioning the accused as stated earlier and who, as can be seen presently, played quite an important role in the case for the defence. At this juncture, suffice for me to state that in his evidence, PW7 said that the white plastic bag, P3, and its contents did not belong to him. He also said that at no time did he ask the accused to collect P3 from a friend's house and to deliver it to him on the morning of November 22, 1982. The rest of the evidence of the prosecution related to the steps taken to ensure that the exhibits, particularly P6A-H, were properly packed and sealed, the sending of the exhi