A pair of identical twins escaped being convicted and hanged on drugs charges in Malaysia, due to confusion over which one of them was the culprit, reports said on Saturday.

The 27-year-old twins, R. Sathis Raj and Sabarish Raj, had been charged with trafficking 166 kilos of cannabis and 1.7 kilos of raw opium in 2003. But police had trouble identifying which one was in possession of the drugs.