MELAKA: A mother and her daughter can look forward to a blissful 'Festa San Pedro’ at the Portuguese Settlement here after the High Court here discharged and acquitted them of drug trafficking charges.
The celebration to commemorate the Feast of St. Peter, the patron saint of fishermen will be held on June 29.
Sharon Farnell, 52, and her daughter Theresa Kennedy, 26, cried tears of happiness and hugged their family members when judge Mohd Radzi Abdul Hamid freed them on Wednesday (June 28).
Earlier, when reading out his judgment, Mohd Radzi ruled that the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case against the duo.
He said the prosecution had failed to prove the utmost important point that others had no access to the shop that the drugs were purportedly discovered and seized on April 24, 2019, and the contradictions of statements by eight prosecution witnesses produced at the trial.
The duo was charged with trafficking 280.7gm of cannabis at De Reggae Cafe and Craft, Jalan Laksamana here on April 24, 2019.
They were charged under Section 39B(1)(a) of the Dangerous Drug Act 1952 which carries the mandatory death penalty or lifelong prison sentence or 15 strokes of cane upon conviction.
The duo’s lawyer Haresh Mahadevan when met outside the court said the elated two look forward to celebrating the Feast of St. Peter.
"The lordship (judge) has critically analysed the evidence of prosecution witnesses in arriving at his decision to free the two," he added.
