KUALA LUMPUR: A former fisherman and his Vietnamese girlfriend were each sentenced to 30 years in prison after the High Court found them guilty of trafficking more than 172kg of methamphetamine in 2022.

Judge Nurulhuda Nur'aini Mohamad Nor convicted Adam Tan Seng Tek, 34, and Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh, 33, after ruling that they failed to raise a reasonable doubt against the prosecution's case.

Nurulhuda ordered them to begin serving the sentence from their arrest on Feb 24, 2022; and ordered Tan to be given 12 strokes of the rotan.

The couple who stood in the dock appeared calm as the decision by Nurulhuda was interpreted to Tan in Mandarin and to Nguyen in Vietnamese.