Victory in the Court of Appeal for Mohamed Mubin Bin Abdul Rahman

We are pleased to announce a significant acquittal for our client, Mr Mohamed Mubin Bin Abdul Rahman.

In Mohamed Mubin bin Abdul Rahman v Public Prosecutor [2024] 1 SLR 474, the Court of Appeal set aside our client’s conviction on two capital charges of trafficking in diamorphine, and ordered that he be released by Prisons.

Our partners Eugene Thuraisingam and Johannes Hadi acted pro bono for Mr Mubin under the Supreme Court’s Legal Assistance Scheme for Capital Offences, together with Mr Mohamed Fazal Bin Abdul Hamid of IRB Law LLP.

The judgment, delivered by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, is significant for its articulation of the following principles:-

• It is generally incumbent on the Prosecution to advance a consistent case, so that the accused person knows the case that he has to meet. This flows from the principle that fairness requires an accused person to have the chance to confront the case theory adopted by the Prosecution and the need to ensure that an accused person is not prejudiced by reason of any inconsistency in the Prosecution’s case.

• Where there is an important weakness in the Prosecution’s case which the Prosecution did not address, the court should not make a finding that is adverse to the accused person in respect of that weakness.

• Where there are multiple co-accused persons, the Prosecution should present a unified case theory that the Defence can challenge as a single, coherent account.

For more, please read the full judgment here.