ROSHDI BIN ABDULLAH ALTWAY v PUBLIC PROSECUTOR ROSHDI BIN ABDULLAH ALTWAY v ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF SINGAPORE

Facts

Roshdi bin Abdullah Altway was a prisoner awaiting capital punishment, with his execution scheduled for 10 April 2025. He had been convicted on 17 August 2020 of possessing for the purpose of trafficking packets and straws found to contain not less than 78.77g of diamorphine, an offence under s 5(1)(a) read with s 5(2) of the Misuse of Drugs Act. As he was not a courier and had no certificate of substantive assistance, the mandatory death penalty was imposed. At trial he admitted possession and knowledge, and ran a defence that he was only safekeeping the drugs for another man. The trial judge rejected that defence and relied on his own admissions in his statements; the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal in CA/CCA 29/2020 on 11 November 2021. His clemency petition was rejected on 7 June 2022, and he later joined several unsuccessful constitutional challenges brought with other inmates.

On 9 April 2025 two applications were filed in the Court of Appeal: CA/OA 9/2025 by his counsel and CA/OAC 1/2025 by the applicant himself. Both sought permission to bring a post-appeal application in a capital case (PACC application) and a stay of execution. He relied on four grounds: a wish to file a fresh clemency petition because of deteriorating health; a wish to complain to the Law Society about his former lawyers; the pending proceedings in CA/SUM 16/2023 and CA/CA 2/2023 on the constitutionality of the drug presumptions; and an argument that the courts had wrongly found both actual and presumed knowledge. A single judge of the Court of Appeal heard the two applications together, overlooking the procedural bar on a second pending application.

Issues

1. Whether a wish to file a fresh clemency petition justified permission and a stay of execution
2. Whether an intended complaint against former counsel justified permission to bring a PACC application
3. Whether the pending challenge to the Misuse of Drugs Act presumptions could affect the applicant's conviction
4. Whether the trial judge and Court of Appeal made inconsistent findings of actual and presumed knowledge

Holding

The Court of Appeal declined permission to bring the PACC applications contemplated in both applications and summarily dismissed CA/OA 9/2025 and CA/OAC 1/2025 under s 60G(8) of the Supreme Court of Judicature Act without an oral hearing, so no stay of execution was granted.

Reasoning

On the clemency ground, the court found no explanation for waiting almost three years after his health was said to have begun deteriorating, calling the ground an afterthought. In any event there is no right to a second clemency petition once the first has been rejected, so seeking time for one does not justify a stay.

On the intended complaint, the applicant did not name the lawyer or say what the lawyer had done or failed to do, so his statement was a bare assertion. The court distinguished Pannir Selvam Pranthaman v Attorney-General [2025] 1 SLR 237, where the complaint had been lodged promptly with detailed allegations, and found the present grievance lacked genuineness.

On the presumptions ground, the court held that the conviction did not rest on the s 17(c) presumption. The trial judge had found possession for the purpose of trafficking proved beyond reasonable doubt on his own admissions, and turned to the presumption only as an alternative basis in case she was wrong. The Court of Appeal had affirmed that primary finding, so even a ruling that the presumptions were unconstitutional would not undermine the conviction.

On the inconsistency ground, knowledge of the nature of the drugs had never been disputed. The applicant had also quoted selectively from Gobi a/l Avedian v Public Prosecutor [2020] SGCA 102, which accepts that alternative cases may be run if the inquiries are kept distinct. Only one factual case had been run against him. The ground was contrived and could have been raised at trial or on appeal. The court added that applications made at the eleventh hour without merit may be inferred to be attempts to delay the sentence.

From the judgment