A DISTRICT judge has slammed the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) for its sloppy investigation into stevedore Yunani Abdul Hamid's case.
Explaining why she acquitted Mr Yunani, District Judge Jasvender Kaur said the bureau should have done more to track down his alleged accomplice Abdul Aziz Idros.
The extent of the CNB's search for Abdul Aziz back in April 1992 amounted to just one visit to his flat and the issuance of an alert to all law enforcement agencies.
Abdul Aziz, who is now serving a 12-year jail sentence, has admitted in court that he had kept in constant contact with his family during his 15 years on the run.
Judge Jasvender criticised the investigating officer at that time, Staff Sergeant Cheong Wah Chow, saying he should have done much more.
Mr Yunani and Abdul Aziz were leaving a port at which they worked on a motorcycle when a guard stopped them and found a bag of cannabis in a bag carried by Abdul Aziz.
Both men fled, but Mr Yunani later turned himself in. He maintained that the bag belonged to his friend and he did not know its contents.
As Abdul Aziz was on the run, Mr Yunani was placed on remand until the bag's ownership could be confirmed. He was discharged in December that year, but with the proviso that he could be re-charged if new evidence came to light.
Judge Jasvender said it was 'quite remarkable' that Staff Sgt Cheong had not taken steps to verify who owned the bag when he could have just asked the men's colleagues.
The officer, who retired in 2000, could also have interviewed relatives of both men to see if the bag, or the clothes inside, belonged to either one of them, she noted.
Instead, the authorities 'simply chose to wait' for Abdul Aziz to be arrested.
The wait lasted 15 years.
The judge called the lack of a thorough investigation a 'complete neglect of duties'.
She added that 'at the very least', the CNB should have determined who owned the bag, interviewed Mr Yunani's friends and family to see if he had any motivation to traffick the drug as well as verified Mr Yunani's account of events with his colleagues.
The judge also had pointed remarks for Deputy Public Prosecutor Lim Tse Haw.
She found it 'seriously troubling' that the prosecution had initially refused to show Mr Yunani his police statements made way back in 1992, despite her asking for it to be done due to the long delay in prosecution.
She said the refusal was 'plainly not in the right spirit and did not show a sense of fairness' by the prosecution.
The prosecutor finally did so at the judge's order.
But what destroyed the prosecution's case was Abdul Aziz's credibility.
Judge Jasvender said the 'resurrecting' of the charges against Mr Yunani, now 34, after 15 years was based largely on Abdul Aziz's word.
But Abdul Aziz, now 41, was a self-confessed cannabis user, a fugitive for 15 years who had even tried to evade arrest by producing false identity documents when he was caught at a roadblock.
Facing a capital charge, the judge noted, it was 'only natural' for Abdul Aziz to shift the blame from himself.