PUTRAJAYA, July 9 — An Australian man is set to face the Court of Appeal where it’ll be decided if he will again be set free and escape a mandatory death penalty over drug trafficking charges.
According to a report by Sky News, Dominic Bird, 34, was accused of supplying 167 grams of methamphetamine to an undercover police officer and was acquitted on September 4 last year but re-arrested minutes before he was about to board a flight home to Australia after prosecutors launched an appeal.
The Court of Appeal is expected to hand down its decision on the appeal today morning.
Sky News reported that Bird’s lawyer, Muhammed Shafee Abdullah, had argued that the arrest at the boarding gate at Malaysia’s international airport was unconstitutional on the grounds that his client had been declared by the Kuala Lumpur High Court to be a free man.
Court of Appeal Justice Azahar Mohamed however rejected that argument and ruled that the arrest was lawful and that the appeal was simply a continuation of a trial.
The a former truck driver, having already spent more than 18 months behind bars, was granted bail pending the outcome of the appeal.
Sky news reports that Bird was initially arrested in March last year at a cafe near his flat in Kuala Lumpur after allegedly supplying an undercover police officer with 167 grams of methamphetamine.
