Japanese drug smuggler loses last chance to escape the gallows in Malaysia
Posted: 18 Oct 2015 05:23 AM PDT
Mariko Takeuchi
KUALA LUMPUR — A 41-year-old Japanese woman has lost her last chance to escape the gallows with Malaysia’s highest court affirming the death sentence meted out by a lower court for trafficking drugs into the Southeast Asian country, her lawyer said Friday.
The five-man bench of the Federal Court unanimously rejected Mariko Takeuchi’s appeal on Thursday.
“Basically, the court does not believe her defense,” her lawyer Teh Poh Teik told Kyodo News.
Teh had argued that there was a defect in the chemical analysis of the drug and questioned why the assistant chemist who conducted a particular test was not called to testify by the prosecution.
He also suggested to the court that Takeuchi, a former nurse, should have been charged with “possession,” for which the heaviest punishment is life imprisonment, instead of trafficking, which carries a mandatory death sentence.
“But in the end, just like the high court and the court of appeal, the federal court found her story not credible,” Teh said.
Takeuchi was convicted by the high court and sentenced to death in October 2011 for trafficking 3.5 kilograms of methamphetamines into Malaysia on Oct 30, 2009. In March 2013, she failed to get the appellate court to overturn her conviction and she took her case to the Federal Court where she again lost.
Under Malaysian law, anyone found possessing a minimum of 50 grams of methamphetamine is considered to be trafficking in a dangerous drug, which is punishable by death.
Takeuchi had pleaded innocent in her first trial. She testified that she did not know about the drugs found in a suitcase she brought to Malaysia from Dubai. She said she was carrying the suitcase as a favor for an Iranian acquaintance.
Takeuchi, who has been incarcerated since her arrest, is the first Japanese national to be tried on a drug trafficking charge in Malaysia and the first sentenced to hang.
Teh said her last resort is to seek a pardon from the Sultan of Selangor state. Meantime, Takeuchi is being held at a women’s prison in northeastern Kelantan state.
Source: Japan Today, October 16, 2015
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Death penalty for Japanese woman upheld in Malaysia
THURSDAY, March 28, 2013
The Star Asia News Network
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Malaysia's Court of Appeal upheld the Shah Alam High Court's decision to hang a Japanese ex-nurse for trafficking in 3.4 kilograms of methamphetamine. Mariko Takeuchi, 39, was caught with the drug on her arrival at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Oc
Her appeal lawyers submitted that there had been a discrepancy in the weight of drugs seized by customs and that presented in court.
“The weight of the drugs had changed during the proceedings at the magistrate’s level, compared to the weight recorded at the time of arrest,” said counsel Afifuddin Ahmad Hafifi.
Justice Mohamed Apandi questioned why the weight would have changed and what reason Customs officers would have to frame the Japanese national for drug trafficking.
He said the lawyer should have provided more reasons to back his theory if he intended to question the integrity of Customs officers.
Takeuchi is the first Japanese woman to receive the death penalty for drug trafficking in Malaysia.
Afifuddin said he would be appealing to the Federal Court.
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Malaysia scraps mandatory death sentence for drug traffickers
Kyodo News
Posted at Dec 01 2017 11:09 AM
KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia's lower house of Parliament on Thursday passed an amendment to end the country's mandatory death sentencing of drug traffickers.
But the move comes too late to save a Japanese woman who is currently on death row for smuggling drugs, as the new law would not be applied retrospectively.
The bill, which next goes to the Senate and then to the king for endorsement, would allow judges the discretion to either impose the death penalty or sentence a convicted person to life imprisonment and not less than 15 strokes of the cane.
Previously anyone found guilty of trafficking over a certain amount of dangerous drugs was automatically sent to the gallows.
"The government is pursuing the amendment because it wants to see if, by giving the court the power to decide, it would help with the war against drugs," de facto law minister Azalina Othman Said was quoted as saying in Parliament by the official news agency Bernama.
She told the House of Representatives that despite various drastic measures taken by the government, the number of drug cases continues to rise.
Between January 2014 and October this year, she said, the police have detained 702,319 people for drug trafficking and possession.
Of this, 21,371 cases fell under Section 39B of the Dangerous Drugs Act 1952 that used to carry the mandatory death sentence, and 10,878 people have already been charged in court under that section.
Before imposing the life imprisonment and caning penalty under the proposed new law, the court must have the public prosecutor certify in writing that the person convicted has assisted law enforcement agencies in disrupting drug trafficking activities.
The court must also take into consideration whether the culprit was merely a drug courier and was not involved in buying and selling of the drug and there was no involvement of agent provocateurs.
The passage of the amendment, however, was not good news for Japanese citizen Mariko Takeuchi, 43, who has exhausted all legal avenues to overturn here death sentence.
She was found guilty of by the High Court in 2011 of having trafficked 3.5 kilograms of methamphetamines into Malaysia via the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on Oct. 30, 2009.
Under the 1952 act, anyone found possessing a minimum of 50 grams of methamphetamine is considered to be trafficking in a dangerous drug, which is punishable by death.
In March 2013, Takeuchi failed to get the appellate court to overturn her conviction and she took her case to the apex Federal Court, which in October 2015 ruled against her and sealed her fate.
"Unfortunately, the amendment is not retrospective. Too late for Mariko," her lawyer Hisyam Teh Poh Teik told Kyodo News.
Takeuchi had testified that she did not know about the drugs found in a suitcase she brought to Malaysia from Dubai. She said she was carrying the suitcase as a favor for an Iranian acquaintance.
Takeuchi, who has been incarcerated since her arrest, is the first Japanese national to be tried on a drug trafficking charge in Malaysia and the first sentenced to hang.
Hisyam said her last resort is to seek a pardon from the Sultan of Selangor state. Meantime, Takeuchi is being held at a women's prison in northeastern Kelantan state.