Confessions and admissions in criminal trials must fulfill the standards of proof required by law; procedural oversight does not negate possession established by evidence.

[1] The applicant (in this judgment will be referred to as the accused) was charged for trafficking of drug under s 39B(2)^[1] of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 ('DDA') which carries the death penalty. He was found guilty by the High Court. The conviction and sentence were later set aside and substituted with a conviction for the offence of possession of drugs and the accused was sentenced to 15 years imprisonment and ten lashes of the rotan under s 39A(2)^[2] by the Court of Appeal. Afterwards, the Public Prosecutor appealed to the Federal Court. The Federal Court reversed the decision of the Court of Appeal and reinstated the decision of the High Court.

[2] In seeking for his conviction to be reviewed pursuant to powers under r 137^[3] of the Rules of the Federal 1995, the accused has two complaints He does so on the grounds that:

a) The Federal Court had erroneously relied on the oral confession of the accused when the prosecution had clearly indicated to the Federal Court that it was not relying on that oral confession; and

b) That during trial at the High Court, the prosecution did not in any way indicate, that it was relying on s 27(1) of the Evidence Act 1950 ('Evidence Act') to prove possession.

[3] It is not necessary for me to go into the facts of the case as it is well laid out in the grounds of judgment of the High Court, Court of Appeal and Federal Court^[4].

[4] We have studied the grounds of judgment of all the three courts, in particular the impugned grounds of judgment of this Court delivered by Abdul Aziz Mohamad, FCJ. The first issue was with regard to the admission of the accused's oral statements made to Raja Abdul Aziz (PW4) and was later admitted after the trial-within-a-trial. According to the judgment, this was based on the submission of the respondent's counsel. He held that the statements were properly admitted. He said:

We are not persuaded by the submission to hold that the statements were improperly admitted. In our judgment, they were. The statement about the cannabis being under the bed meant that the respondent knew of the existence of the cannabis in his bags The learned trial judge was therefore right on finding that the respondent was in possession of the cannabis.

[5] We agree with the conclusion of the learned Federal Court Judge above.

[6] According to the learned counsel for the accused (who also acted for the respondent in that appeal at this Court, the Court of Appeal and the High Court), the learned DPP had abandoned his reliance on the confession. The learned DPP on the other hand said that the confession that he had abandoned was the confession made after the discovery of the drugs In our opinion, whether the confession is admitted or not and as to which confession he referred to, would not change the findings by the Federal Court that the cannabis was in the possession of the accused. This is clear from the following words of the Abdul Aziz Mohamad, FCJ when he continued to say:

We will go a step further and say that, even were the respondent's statement to be overlooked, the fact that the respondent, in the circumstances that obtained, brought out from under the bed the bags containing the cannabis was itself sufficient as complete and direct proof that he had knowledge of the existence of the cannabis in the bags and was therefore in possession of it. With such proof of knowledge, it is unavailing as a defence to suggest that the presence of the cannabis in the respondent's bags was the result, unknown to the respondent, of the work of someone who