PUTRAJAYA, MALAYSIA - Three men escaped the death penalty for trafficking in ganja due to a technical blunder by trial judges who heard their cases.

The Court of Appeal had to substitute their convictions with jail terms and rotan following their appeals against the decisions of the High Court.

In the first case, former electrician Hassaidi Hassan, 30, escaped the hangman's noose because the trial judge in his judgment made an error.

At the close of the prosecution case, the trial judge said Hassaidi was presumed to be a trafficker because he was in possession of 1.3kg of ganja.

However, in the written grounds, he said Hasaaidi was only deemed to be in possession of the ganja.

He was, however, sentenced to death by the High Court.

Court of Appeal judge Datuk Suriyadi Halim Omar, who sat with Datuk Hasan Lah and Datuk Ahmad Maarop, agreed with counsel Hisyam Teh Poh Teik that the trial judge committed an error in law.

It then sentenced Hassaidi to 16 years' jail and 10 strokes of the rotan for possession.

He was convicted in early February 2002 but his appeal came to the Court of Appeal seven years later.

He committed the offence along a highway near Rasah in Seremban on Oct 22, 1999.

In the second case, ex-traders Shamsudin Hassan and Mohamad Khair Yusof were also spared the capital punishment.

Their counsel, Datuk K. Kumaraendran, submitted that the trial judge at the close of the prosecution case did not follow the procedure if they were indeed traffickers as outlined in the Dangerous Drugs Act (DDA) 1952.

The trial judge came to a finding of fact that they were presumed to have been in possession of 9.6kg of ganja but went on to convict them of peddling drugs by relying on what amounts to trafficking.

Suriyadi then set aside the death sentence imposed on Shamudin, 38, and Mohamad Khair, 31, and sentenced them to 20 years' jail and 10 strokes of the rotan.

Both men were in possession of the ganja at the Gunong Semangol rest and recreation area near Taiping in March 1999.

The High Court in Taiping found them guilty of trafficking in April 2006.