Malaysian identical twin brothers have escaped hanging for drug trafficking as a court failed to decide which brother was the criminal, and cleared both.

A judge in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, said the case was unique and she could not send the wrong person to his death.

In 2003 police arrested one brother found driving drugs to a house. The second twin arrived soon afterwards and was also arrested.

Neither officers nor a DNA test could identify which twin owned the drugs.

Sathis and Sabarish Raj, 27, cried in court when they heard the judge say that the prosecution had failed to prove which twin had been arrested first with a car containing 166kg of cannabis and almost 2kg of raw opium.

According to the New Straits Times, the judge told the court: "I can't be calling the wrong twin to enter his defence. I can't be sending the wrong person to the gallows."

Execution is mandatory for convicted drugs traffickers in Malaysia.





