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List of major crimes in Singapore (2010–2019)

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The following is a list of major crimes in Singapore that happened between 2010 and 2019. They are arranged in chronological order.

2010

  • 29 May 2010: In a case known as the 2010 Kallang slashings, four Malaysians from Sarawak – 21-year-old Micheal Garing, 31-year-old Tony Anak Imba, 20-year-old Hairee Landak and 19-year-old Donny Meluda – committed a series of armed robberies, causing three victims to sustain serious injuries. They also targeted their fourth victim, 41-year-old construction worker Shanmuganathan Dillidurai, by brutally attacking him as they robbed him. Shanmuganathan succumbed to his injuries. Micheal, Tony and Hairee were arrested after the crime, while Donny fled to Malaysia and was eventually arrested in 2017. On 20 April 2015, High Court judge Choo Han Teck found Micheal and Tony guilty of murder and sentenced the former to death while sentencing the latter to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Micheal appealed against his death sentence while the prosecution pressed for Tony to receive the death penalty too; the Court of Appeal turned down both appeals. Micheal was hanged on 22 March 2019 after President Halimah binte Yacob turned down his appeal for clemency. Hairee and Donny were each sentenced to 33 years' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane for multiple charges of armed robbery with hurt in 2013 and 2018 respectively.[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9]
  • 6 July 2010: 56-year-old Singaporean Abdul Kahar Othman, who was previously released in 2005 after serving ten years of preventive detention, was re-arrested for trafficking a total of 66.77 grams of diamorphine. Abdul Kahar, who had been going in and out of prison since age 18 for drug offences, was charged and convicted in 2013, and sentenced to death in 2015 after the High Court deemed he was not a courier, making him ineligible for the alternative penalty of life imprisonment. While on death row, Abdul Kahar appealed several times against the death penalty, but the courts upheld his sentence and dismissed all his appeals. Abdul Kahar spent seven years on death row before his death warrant was finalized, and 68-year-old Abdul Kahar was hanged at dawn on 30 March 2022; his execution was the first to be conducted in Singapore since 2019, and also the first execution authorised during the COVID-19 pandemic in Singapore.[10][11]
  • 22 September 2010: During a Mid Autumn Festival night, 20-year-old National Serviceman Soh Wee Kian stabbed Hoe Hong Lin and killed her. Soh was also involved in the grievous assault case of How Poh Ling four months earlier, and two other hurt-related incidents of females. Soh was initially charged with murder but due to an adjustment disorder with a depressed mood, he was found guilty of both culpable homicide and inflicting grievous hurt, and sentenced to life imprisonment on 22 August 2013; no caning is given due to his psychiatric conditions.[12]
  • 30 October 2010: Republic Polytechnic student Darren Ng Wei Jie was involved in a 'staring' incident with a group of teenage gang members. The gang members viciously attacked him at Downtown East in Pasir Ris, and he later died of his injuries in Changi General Hospital. A total of 12 youths were arrested and charged with rioting. Among these 12 youths, five of them – 18-year-old Stilwell Ong Keat Pin, 20-year-old Ho Wui Ming, 19-year-old Chen Wei Zhen, 18-year-old Edward Tay Wei Loong and 16-year-old Louis Tong Qing Yao – were initially charged with murder but later had their charges reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang thus sentenced them as follows: Ong was sentenced to 12 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane; Ho was sentenced to 11 years and three months' jail and 10 strokes of the cane; Chen and Tay were each sentenced to 10 years' jail and 10 strokes of the cane; while Tong was sentenced to eight years' jail and 11 strokes of the cane. The other seven youths were also sentenced to jail terms ranging between three years and three months and six years and three months, as well as caning between three and six strokes for rioting and other unrelated minor offences.[13][14][15][16][17]

2011

  • 18 January 2011: 26-year-old Malaysian national Datchinamurthy Kataiah, together with a Singaporean accomplice Christeen Jayamany, were arrested at the Woodlands Checkpoint by the Singapore authorities for allegedly trafficking over 44.96g of heroin across the border of Singapore from Malaysia. On 8 May 2015, Christeen, who was certified as a courier and had given substantive assistance to the authorities in tackling drug offences, was spared the gallows and she was therefore sentenced to life imprisonment, with effect from the date of her arrest. Christeen also did not receive caning since she was a female. Datchinamurthy, on the other hand, was sentenced to death after he failed to prove himself as a courier. Datchinamurthy lost his appeals and he also filed other legal lawsuits to challenge his death sentence. Originally scheduled to be executed on 29 April 2022, Datchinamurthy obtained a stay of execution to allow him to continue to live while his current lawsuit is pending in the courts.[18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]
  • 26 May 2011: 36-year-old Celine Ng Swee Peng allegedly went missing on the date of her birthday after telling her flatmate that she wanted to go on a short overseas trip, and she was reported missing two days after she became uncontactable. Ng's family and friends tried searching for Ng but their efforts failed, and the police also searched nationwide for clues relating to her whereabouts. Ng's skeleton was found 41 days after her disappearance, but the cause of death was unknown. The police classified the case as murder and arrested her flatmate, 36-year-old Ang Soo Hoon, who confessed to strangling Ng to death after failing to help Ng commit suicide. Originally charged with murder, Ang pleaded guilty in July 2015 to one charge of manslaughter, one charge of misappropriating Ng's money and one charge of providing false information to the police. She was sentenced to 12.5 years' imprisonment by Justice Tay Yong Kwang.[26]
  • 28 December 2011: In a high-profile case involving an online vice syndicate, 48 men were charged for having sex with an underage prostitute. The case started with an eight-hour police raid on 28 December 2011 to crack down on an online vice ring. Subsequent investigations revealed that 39-year-old Tang Boon Thiew, who operated the online vice ring, had earned more than S$370,000 from sexual services provided by the prostitutes he hired. Among them, there was a 17-year-old girl from China whom Tang had forced into prostitution and had represented online as 18 years old. On 11 January 2013, Tang was sentenced by senior district judge See Kee Oon to 58 months' imprisonment and a S$90,000 fine for 20 vice-related charges. Throughout the trial, which lasted from 2012 to 2015, the case made headlines in Singapore because there were high-profile individuals, top civil servants, government scholarship holders, businessmen and managers among the 48 accused, including some foreigners. The 48 accused included UBS banker Juerg Buergin; Shaw Organisation scion Howard Shaw Chai Li; RSN scholar and captain Chan Wei Kiat; army lieutenant-colonel Emlyn Thomas Thariyan; police superintendent Tan Wee Kiat; NEA in-house lawyer Chia Kok Peng; MOE scholar and teacher Chua Ren Cheng; and Pei Chun Public School principal Lee Lip Hong.[27][28][29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39]

2012

  • 30–31 March 2012: 37-year-old Gabriel Lee Haw Ling killed and decapitated his fiancée, 24-year-old Elsie Lie Lek Chee, in their Jurong West rented room after believing that she was possessed by evil spirits. Lee was initially charged with murder, but the charge was reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder after he was diagnosed to be suffering from a brief psychotic disorder when he killed Lie. He pleaded guilty and was sentenced on 24 February 2017 by High Court judge Pang Khang Chau to 10 years' imprisonment.[40]
  • 13 April 2012: Nazeri Lajim, a 54-year-old Singaporean and drug addict, was arrested for trafficking 33.89g of diamorphine at Far East Shopping Centre in Orchard Road. 24-year-old Dominic Martin Fernandez, a Malaysian who delivered the drugs to Nazeri, was caught shortly after he parted ways with Nazeri. After a trial that dragged on for two years, Dominic and Nazeri were both found guilty of drug trafficking on 8 August 2017. Dominic was certified as a courier and sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane, while Nazeri was sentenced to death after Senior Judge Kan Ting Chiu judging him as not a courier, in addition to his earlier rejection of Nazeri's defence that most of the drugs were for his own consumption. Nazeri lost his appeals and two clemency petitions, and eventually executed on 22 July 2022.[41][42][43]

2013

  • 15 June 2013: A group of gang members attacked 20-year-old Wilson Siau with parangs outside Cathay Cineleisure Orchard at around 9:12 pm purportedly because of his "cocky" manner of walking, particularly the way he swung his arms. The attack, which took place in full view of passers-by, left Siau bleeding profusely. Siau was immediately rushed to Singapore General Hospital and he survived the slashing after undergoing surgery and treatment. Nine men were subsequently arrested, charged in court, and convicted of rioting and being members of an unlawful assembly. Some of the nine were named in news reports: 19-year-old Muhamad Hardi Azaman was charged on 26 June 2013. On 25 November 2013, 19-year-old Muhammad Hasnul Redha Abdullah was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane; 20-year-old Muhammad Fahmi Razali was sentenced to three years and six months' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane; and 21-year-old Muhammad Nazmir Osman was sentenced to two years and six months' imprisonment and four strokes of the cane. Two others – Muhammad Farin Zulkeple and Muhammad Ridzuan Said – pleaded guilty and were assessed for their suitability for reformative training. On 7 April 2016, a 26-year-old Mizra Abdul Azman was sentenced to five years' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane for another slashing while he was out on bail following his arrest for the 2013 incident at Cineleisure.[44][45][46][47][48]
  • 10 July 2013: In a case known as the Kovan double murders, 34-year-old Iskandar bin Rahmat, a former policeman, killed 67-year-old Tan Boon Sin and his 42-year-old son, Tan Chee Heong. Tan Boon Sin's body was found in his home at Hillside Drive while Tan Chee Heong's body was dragged under a car for 1 km from the home before being dislodged outside Kovan MRT station. Iskandar, who had joined the Singapore Police Force in 1999, fled to Malaysia shortly after committing the crime. He was arrested in Johor Bahru two days later, extradited back to Singapore and charged with murder on 15 July 2013. As he was facing financial difficulties and bankruptcy which could possibly cost him his job, Iskandar hatched a plan to rob the elder Tan in order to settle his debts, which led to the double murders. High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang found Iskandar guilty of murder on 4 December 2015 and sentenced him to death, rejecting Iskandar's claims of self-defence and that the killings was a result of a robbery gone wrong; the injuries on the victims were inflicted on vital parts of the body and the force used were too excessive for self-defence, which clearly showed that Iskandar had intended to cause death and silence the victims. Iskandar's appeal to the Court of Appeal was dismissed on 3 February 2017, while his plea for clemency to President Halimah binte Yacob was also turned down in July 2019. As of July 2021, Iskandar is still held on death row in Changi Prison due to unsettled legal issues.[49][50][51][52][53][54][55][56][57][58][59]
  • 6 September 2013: Mogan Valo, a Malaysian, was caught with 1.0179kg of marijuana in his possession before he could reach the Tuas Checkpoint. Mogan confessed that he was asked by a man named "India" to deliver the drugs for trafficking. "India", whose real name was Tangaraju Suppiah, was arrested in March 2014 while he was in remand for a drug consumption offence. Mogan pleaded guilty to a non-capital charge of trafficking 499.99g of marijuana and was sentenced to 23 years' imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane. On the other hand, Tangaraju, who insisted his innocence, was sentenced to death on 9 October 2018 for abetting the trafficking of marijuana, after the High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng determined that he was indeed the person who contaxted Mogan to traffic the drugs based on the circumstantial evidence and phone number that coordinated their conversation and delivery of drugs. Tangaraju lost his appeals, and he was hanged on 26 April 2023.[60][61][62][63][64][65]
  • 24 October 2013: Two drug traffickers - 35-year-old Singaporean Mohamad Yazid Md Yusof and 23-year-old Pahang-born Malaysian Kalwant Singh Jogindar Singh - were arrested by the Central Narcotics Bureau at a carpark in Woodlands Drive, and over 120g of diamorphine were found in Yazid's motorcycle while another 60g of diamorphine were discovered in Kalwant's possession as well. Based on Yazid's later confession, the police investigated and discovered the involvement of a third man who ordered Yazid to smuggle and collect the drugs from Kalwant for trafficking. Yazid's boss, 42-year-old Singaporean Norasharee Gous, was arrested two years later in July 2015. A year later, in June 2016, Yazid was sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane after the prosecution certified him as a courier, while both Norasharee (who insisted his innocence and put up an alibi defence) and Kalwant (who denied having any knowledge of the drugs) were sentenced to death after the High Court rejected their defences and found them guilty. After several appeals (including an unsuccessful re-trial of Norasharee) and failed pleas for clemency, both 31-year-old Kalwant and 48-year-old Norasharee were hanged at dawn in Changi Prison on 7 July 2022.[66][67]
  • 8 December 2013: A riot broke out in Little India shortly after 33-year-old Sakthivel Kumaravelu, a construction worker from India, was killed in a traffic accident. This was the first time a riot happened in Singapore since the 1969 race riots. Over 20 men from Bangladesh and India were charged for their respective roles in the riot and sentenced to jail terms; three of them were also each sentenced to three strokes of the cane. In the aftermath of the riot, the Singapore government passed the Liquor Control (Supply and Consumption) Act 2015 to regulate the supply and consumption of liquor at public places, since the investigations had revealed that many of the rioters were drunk when the riot occurred. The riot also drew public attention to various social issues in Singapore, including ongoing ethnic tensions, rising income inequality, Singapore's heavy reliance on foreign labour, as well as the working conditions of migrant workers.[68]
  • 9 December 2013: 46-year-old P Mageswaran, an ex-convict who had a long criminal record of rape, theft and robbery crimes since 1991 and recently released from prison after serving a six-year jail term with caning of 24 strokes for previous serial robberies, had re-offended by committing robbery in the Yishun home of his employer's 62-year-old mother Kanne Lactmy. This time, he murdered the elderly woman during the course of robbery, in which he took away the victim's jewellery to pawn for RM26,300 to pay off his new flat's installment payment. Mageswaran was arrested eight days later and charged with murder, which was later reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. After Mageswaran was tried and convicted in May 2017, the prosecution described the case as one of the worst types of culpable homicide and sought the maximum sentence of life imprisonment for Mageswaran given his long criminal record and the cold-blooded, calculated nature of the killing, while the defence sought 12 years' of imprisonment given that Mageswaran was allegedly suffering from low IQ and it affected his thinking and conduct at the time of the crime. After hearing the submissions, High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng sentenced 50-year-old Mageswaran on 21 July 2017 to 18 years' imprisonment, since she did not agree that it was the worst type of culpable homicide given the lack of premeditation to kill and accepted that it was a robbery gone wrong. Mageswaran was not caned since he reached 50 years old, and the judge did not impose an extra jail term of six months in lieu of caning despite the prosecution's arguments. Later, not only did Mageswaran's appeal to reduce his 18-year sentence failed, the prosecution's appeal to increase the sentence from 18 years to life was also dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 11 April 2019.[69][70][71][72][73]
  • 12 December 2013: 33-year-old Indian national Jasvinder Kaur's dismembered body was found in the Whampoa River. Her husband, 33-year-old Indian national Harvinder Singh, is suspected to have killed her. 25-year-old Gursharan Singh was arrested for assisting Harvinder Singh in disposing of the body and failing to report to the police. He was sentenced to 30 months' imprisonment in April 2015. A coroner's report had issued a verdict of murder, effectively finding Harvinder Singh guilty of murder in the case of his wife's death, as the manner of disposal of the headless corpse and circumstances of the crime was well-organised and did not indicate any signs of a crime of passion. As of July 2021, Harvinder Singh is still on the run and on Interpol's wanted list.[74][75]
  • 28–29 December 2013: 37-year-old Dexmon Chua Yizhi was found dead in Lim Chu Kang on 1 January 2014. Two suspects, 53-year-old Chia Kee Chen and 64-year-old Chua Leong Aik, were arrested and charged with murder. A third suspect, Djatmiko Febri Irwansyah (late 20s), had fled Singapore. It was revealed that Dexmon Chua had an affair with Chia's wife, so Chia had collaborated with Chua Leong Aik and Febri to murder Dexmon Chua in revenge. On 8 January 2016, Chua Leong Aik, who drove the vehicle, was sentenced to five years' imprisonment for his role in the murder. On 4 August 2017, Chia was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment by High Court judge Choo Han Teck. The prosecution appealed for Chia to be given the death penalty, arguing that the murder was premeditated and had been carried out in a merciless, cruel and vicious manner demonstrating a blatant disregard for human life. On 27 June 2018, the Court of Appeal overturned Chia's life sentence and sentenced him to death. As of July 2021, Djatmiko Febri Irwansyah is still on the run.[76][77][78][79][80][81][82]

2014

  • 8 January 2014: 41-year-old Lee Sze Yong, a former salesman, hatched a plot with his accomplice, 50-year-old Heng Chen Boon, to abduct 79-year-old Ng Lye Poh, the mother of the three founders of the supermarket chain Sheng Siong. Having conducted reconnaissance before the abduction, Lee approached Ng at an overhead bridge in Hougang on the morning of 8 January 2014 and lied to her that her eldest son, Lim Hock Chee, the CEO of Sheng Siong, had collapsed at his workplace. Lee then tricked Ng into getting into a car and blindfolded her while driving her around. Lee met Heng later and they demanded S$20 million in ransom. The police tracked down and arrested the two men before they got the ransom. Lee and Heng were charged with abduction on 10 January 2014. Heng was sentenced to three years in jail in 2015 for abetting the kidnapping, and released in January 2016 on remission. On 1 December 2016, Lee, who had asked for the death penalty, was sentenced by High Court judge Chan Seng Onn to life imprisonment and three strokes of the cane.[83]
  • 14 January 2014: At a brothel in Geylang, 50-year-old Chan Lie Sian brutally assaulted his 35-year-old pimp William Tiah Hung Wai by bludgeoning him on the head with a metal dumbbell rod several times. seven days later, Tiah died in hospital, just a day before he turned 36. Chan, who earlier surrendered himself and faced an initial charge of causing grievous hurt, had his charge amended to murder. Although Chan was sentenced to death in 2017 for intentional murder, his appeal was allowed after the Court of Appeal found that Chan never intended to cause death and never knew that the injuries were fatal, and hence, Chan’s conviction was downgraded to one of murder without the intent to kill, and his death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment.[84]
  • March 2014: Known as the Chin Swee Road murder, a two-year-old girl, whose given name was Umaisyah, was allegedly killed by her biological parents, who burned her corpse and sealed her remains inside a metal cooking pot from their kitchen. The death of Umaisyah was hidden for five years before her body was accidentally discovered in September 2019 by her mother's intellectually-disabled younger brother, who was searching for food to eat at the time of the grisly discovery. The couple, who were already in prison serving sentences or pending trial for unrelated offences, were arrested and charged with murder. In March 2021, Umaisyah's mother was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for murdering her daughter, but the father still faced the murder charge. The couple were also charged with having abused Umaisyah and their other surviving children, perverting the course of justice, as well as giving false information to the social welfare agencies in relation to the girl's whereabouts. Umaisyah's father was later convicted of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and three other lesser charges, and sentenced to a total of 21 years and six months in jail, in addition to 18 strokes of the cane. Umaisyah's mother pleaded guilty to four charges of child abuse and obstruction of justice, and sentenced to 14 years in prison on 7 February 2024. The identities of Umaisyah's parents and Umaisyah's surname were not made public to avoid the identification of the girl's surviving siblings.[85][86][87][88][89][90][91]
  • 19 March 2014: At her bungalow in Victoria Park, Bukit Timah, 69-year-old Nancy Gan Wan Geok, a philanthropist and porcelain painter, was fatally assaulted by her 18-year-old Indonesian maid Dewi Sukowati before she was drowned inside her bungalow’s swimming pool. Dewi, who was allegedly a victim of maid abuse, was arrested and charged with murder. Eventually, after she was assessed to be suffering from diminished responsibility, Dewi’s murder charge was amended to a lesser charge of manslaughter and she was sentenced to 18 years in prison on 31 May 2016.[92]
  • 28 May 2014: 44-year-old serial rapist Azuar Ahamad, who spiked his victims' drinks with sleeping pills before raping them, was sentenced to a total of 37 years and six months' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Azuar committed various sexual offences against 22 women in 2008 and 2009 after getting to know them online, and after his arrest, he was tried and pleaded guilty in 2012. In sentencing Azuar to a lengthy jail term, High Court judge Chan Seng Onn harshly criticized Azuar for his lack of remorse and the prosecution stated that this case was committed by the "worst serial rapist ever to be dealt with in Singapore".[93]
  • 11 June 2014: Two Pakistani nationals – 43-year-old Rasheed Muhammad and 25-year-old Ramzan Rizwan – strangled and killed their roommate, 59-year-old Muhammad Noor, by suffocating and strangling him. They attempted to get rid of his body by dismembering it and stashing the torso and legs in two suitcases. One of the suitcases was found at Syed Alwi Road and the two men were arrested and charged with murder. On 17 February 2017, High Court judge Choo Han Teck found Rasheed and Ramzan guilty of murder and sentenced them to death. The Court of Appeal dismissed their appeals on 28 September 2017 and they were hanged in early 2018.[94][95][96][97][98]
  • August 2014: Four-year-old Mohammad Airyl Amirul Haziq Mohamed Ariff died from a fractured skull four days after he was taken to hospital. Airyl's mother, Noraidah Mohd Yussof (who also had one daughter), had severely beaten him for not able to recite the numbers 11 to 18 in Malay, and Noraidah had also abused the child for two years since March 2012. Noraidah, who was a 32-year-old divorcee at the time of her arrest, was charged with murder but in July 2016, Noraidah was consequently found guilty of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and child abuse, and she was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment by the High Court, which rejected Noraidah's defence of diminished responsibility by Asperger's Syndrome. However, a year later, the Court of Appeal, upon looking through the prosecution's appeal, found Noraidah's eight-year sentence manifestly inadequate due to the aggravating circumstances of the case (including the boy's young age and Noraidah's cruelty at the time of the crime) and thus increased Noraidah's jail term to 14 years and six months' imprisonment. The case of Airyl's death also prompted the Court of Appeal to call for lawmakers to allow judges to mete out enhanced sentences for certain crimes against vulnerable victims by 1.5 times the maximum penalty prescribed.[99][100][101]
  • 3 September 2014: 27-year-old Malaysian Pannir Selvam Pranthaman was arrested for importing 51.84g of heroin into Singapore. Pannir was found guilty in 2017 and sentenced to death as he was not certified to be a courier. After his appeal was dismissed in February 2018, Pannir and his family submitted various clemency petitions, which were all rejected on 17 May 2019. He was originally due to hang on 24 May 2019, but the execution was postponed due to a last-minute appeal to challenge the clemency outcome and the decision of the prosecution to not certify him as a courier, but it was rejected by the High Court in February 2020, and the legal challenge against the 2019 appeal's rejection is also dismissed by the Court of Appeal on 26 November 2021. As of 2022, Pannir is currently on death row awaiting execution.[102][103][104]
  • September 2014: 40-year-old Yang Yin, a tour guide from Nanjing, China, was arrested after a police report was made against him by Hedy Mok (aged 69 in 2022), the niece and guardian of retired physiotherapist Chung Khin Chun (aged 95 in 2022), whom Yang first met in 2008 and took care of. Yang misappropriated $500,000 in February 2010 and $600,000 in January 2012 from Chung, whom he claimed wanted him to be her grandson, since she was childless and her husband and doctor Chou Sip King died in 2007. Yang, who was married with two children back in China, also obtained permanent residency in 2011 and lasting power of attorney in 2012 through his manipulation and cheating of Chung and even made her set a will that Yang was to inherit her assets - estimated to be worth $40 million - in 2010. The turn of events made Chung's relatives and niece suspected Yang was up to no good, and finally, he was arrested and his crimes came to light in September 2014. Yang, who was held in remand since 31 October 2014, was brought to trial in September 2016, and he pleaded guilty to all the charges he faced for cheating Chung. He was sentenced by District Judge Bala Reddy to a total of eight years and two months' imprisonment - which consisted of six years' jail for the misappropriation of Chung's money and a consecutive prison term of 26 months for falsifying his immigration status. On 3 March 2017, the prosecution's appeal was heard and allowed in the High Court by Judge of Appeal Tay Yong Kwang, who increased Yang's six-year sentence for cheating to nine years based on the highly aggravating nature of Yang's crimes, his meticulous efforts of manipulating Chung and the amount of money misappropriated. The enhancement of Yang's sentence meant that Yang would need to serve a total of 11 years and two months' imprisonment. Yang, whose sentence was backdated to his date of remand (31 October 2014), was released early by parole in April 2022 after serving two-thirds of his jail term due to good behaviour. Yang, now 48 years old, was deported to China two months later on 9 June 2022, and barred from re-entering Singapore.[105][106][107][108][109]
  • 20 November 2014: 40-year-old Jackson Lim Hou Peng was arrested at his Ang Mo Kio flat for the alleged murder of his girlfriend, 32-year-old Vietnamese national Tran Cam Ny. Lim, who was previously jailed for drug consumption, faced an additional charge of consuming methamphetamine. On 14 March 2016, his murder charge was reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder on the account that he was suffering from diminished responsibility due to the effects of drugs, and that he had no intention to kill when he covered Tran's mouth to stop her from screaming. Based on these mitigating factors, in addition to the fact that Lim had called for medical assistance and tried to resuscitate Tran upon discovering that she was not breathing, High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang sentenced Lim to a total of nine years and six months' imprisonment and three strokes of the cane. The case was re-enacted in the crime show The Convict, in which Lim and Tran's names were changed to protect their privacy.[110][111][112][113]
  • 11 December 2014: 26-year-old Malaysian Gobi Avedian, a security guard working in Singapore, was arrested at the Woodlands Checkpoint for trafficking over 40.22g of heroin. Gobi recounted in his trial that he needed money to pay for his daughter's medical fees, so he accepted his friend Vinod's offer to deliver the drugs, but he did not know it was heroin; his friends assured him that the drugs were just mild "disco drugs" mixed with chocolate. In May 2017, the High Court sentenced Gobi to 15 years' imprisonment and ten strokes of the cane for a lower charge of attempted importation of a Class C drug. However, upon the prosecution's appeal, in October 2018, Gobi was sentenced to death for the original charge by the Court of Appeal. Gobi's clemency appeal was later dismissed in July 2019, and after an unsuccessful February 2020 appeal, Gobi appealed to re-open his case in light of a new landmark ruling, which clarifies the "willful blindness" and "presumption of knowledge" principles in Singapore's drug laws. The Court of Appeal eventually re-opened the case, and after reviewing it, they decided to overturn Gobi's death penalty in October 2020 and instead, restored his original 15-year sentence and caning for his 2017 original conviction by the High Court.[114][115][116][117]

2015

  • 20 March 2015: 31-year-old Malaysian engineer Yap Weng Wah was convicted of 76 sexual offences committed against 31 pubescent boys aged between 11 and 15 whom he met through online social networking. Yap's sexual rampage on his victims, which lasted from November 2009 to June 2012, ended with his arrest at his Yishun apartment in September 2012 after the sister of one of his victims made a police report. When the police raided the apartment, they found more than 2,000 videos of Yap having sex with boys on his laptop. He was also found to have also raped 14 more boys in Malaysia. The charges against Yap involved him performing oral sex on or sodomising 30 of his victims. The Institute of Mental Health released a diagnosis report that Yap was suffering from hebephilia, a type of sexual preference for early adolescent children between 11 and 14 years of age. Yap, who pleaded guilty to 12 counts of sexual penetration with a minor and have 64 other charges taken into consideration during sentencing, was described by the prosecution as a "clear and present danger to society". In view of his high propensity to re-offend and other aggravating factors, High Court judge Woo Bih Li sentenced Yap to 30 years' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane.[118][119][120][121][122]
  • 13 April 2015: A couple – Tan Hui Zhen and Pua Hak Chuan – had cruelly abused their flatmate, 26-year-old Annie Ee Yu Lian, over eight months from August 2014 until her death on 13 April 2015. Ee, who was intellectual disabled and estranged from her family, had moved in to live with the couple in 2013. Throughout the eight months, the couple had beaten her frequently and the beatings had increased in intensity over time, with some sessions lasting up to two hours. As a result, Ee had difficulty walking, standing and breathing, and had become incontinent in the days leading to her death. She had been repeatedly hit with a large roll of shrink wrap weighing up to 1 kg, and had a plastic dustbin smashed over her with such force that the dustbin cracked. Despite the abuse, she suffered in silence and tried to hide her injuries from her colleagues and neighbours when they asked her. An autopsy report revealed that she suffered 12 fractured ribs, seven fractured vertebrae, a ruptured stomach and a body full of blisters and bruises; she had died of acute fat embolism caused by the beatings. The couple were initially charged with murder, but had their charges reduced to causing grievous hurt with a weapon, among others. On 1 December 2017, High Court judge Hoo Sheau Peng sentenced a 33-year-old Tan to 16 years and six months in jail, and a 38-year-old Pua to 14 years in jail and 14 strokes of the cane.[123][124]
  • 1 June 2015: A red Subaru Impreza driven by 34-year-old Mohamed Taufik bin Zahar took an incorrect turn and ended up at a high security checkpoint near the Shangri-La Hotel where the Shangri-La Dialogue was held. When the police ordered Taufik to open the car boot for checks, he sped up and crashed the car through concrete barriers despite repeated warnings to stop. The police then opened fire and fatally shot Taufik through the windscreen, causing the car to come to a halt. On 22 April 2016, state coroner Marvin Bay ruled that Taufik's death was a "lawful killing".[125][126]
  • 20 June 2015: 24-year-old Muhammad Iskandar bin Sa'at was arrested on 19 June 2015 for the theft of a motor vehicle and escorted by the police to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital the next day for a medical examination after he claimed that he had chest pain. After his grip restraints were loosened on his left arm and right wrist for blood drawing and minimising discomfort respectively, Iskandar attacked police staff sergeant Muhammad Sadli bin Razali and attempted to escape. During the scuffle, Iskandar grabbed Sadli's T-baton and used it to hit him at least 13 times. He also snatched Sadli's revolver and managed to fire three shots, injuring Sadli's left thumb and right foot. Sadli and two paramedics eventually subdued and pinned down Iskandar. On 22 June 2015, Iskandar was charged with unlawful discharge of a firearm under the Arms Offences Act, which carries the mandatory death penalty. However, the charge was later reduced to unlawful possession of a firearm for causing hurt to a public servant, to which Iskandar pleaded guilty. On 19 March 2018, High Court judge Chan Seng Onn sentenced Iskandar to life imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane.[127][128][129]
  • 26 August 2015: Zackeer Abbass Khan, the owner of the murtabak restaurant Zam Zam at North Bridge Road, allegedly paid S$2,000 to Anwer Ambiya Kadir Maideen, his friend who was also a headman of the Sio Ang Koon gang, to hire a hitman, Joshua Navindran Surainthiran, to attack Liakath Ali Mohamed Ibrahim, the supervisor of the neighbouring Victory Restaurant. Liakath survived the slashing with a permanent scar on his face. On 29 November 2016, a 23-year-old Joshua was sentenced to six years and six months' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane for causing grievous hurt, among other charges. Zackeer, along with Anwer and four others, were charged with engaging in a conspiracy to cause grievous hurt and/or criminal intimidation. On 11 May 2020, district judge Mathew Joseph found a 49-year-old Zackeer guilty of conspiring to cause grievous hurt and sentenced him to six years' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane. A 50-year-old Anwer, who served as the middleman in the scheme, was sentenced to five years and six months' imprisonment.[130][131][132]
  • 31 August 2015: Syed Maffi Hasan, a 24-year-old jobless Singaporean, was arguing with his 23-year-old friend Atika Dolkifli at a multistorey carpark at Toa Payoh over the repair costs of an iPhone 5 that went faulty after Atika purhcased it for Syed Maffi to use. In a fit of rage, Syed Maffi pushed Atika, causing her to fall and hit the back of her head on a flight of stairs. After which, he threw the unconscious Atika off the carpark and even disposed of her belongings; Atika died from the fall. Syed Maffi was arrested and charged with murder, and after he pleaded guilty in May 2019, Syed Maffi was sentenced to life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane on 4 July 2019.[133]
  • 6 October 2015: Five people, two Malaysians and three Singaporeans, were arrested in Jurong West for trafficking 32.54g of diamorphine. All five of them, four men and one woman, were charged with capital drug trafficking, but two of them, Suhaizam Khariri (Malaysian) and Azidah Zainal (Singaporean), both pleaded guilty to non-capital drug charges and each sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment, with Suhaizam receiving 15 strokes of the cane. The remaining three, Roszaidi Osman (Azidah's husband), Aishammudin Jamaludin and Mohammad Azli Mohammad Salleh, were jointly tried before Justice Choo Han Teck, who found Roszaidi and Azli guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced them to death in January 2019, while convicting Aishammudin of a non-capital drug charge and handed down a 25-year jail term with caning (15 strokes). After the prosecution and defence appealed in 2020, Azli was acquitted of all charges, while Aishammudin's 25-year sentence was raised to life imprisonment, and Roszaidi was granted a re-sentencing trial in light of new evidence that could potentially reduce his death sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Although the original trial judge rejected Roszaidi's defence of diminished responsibility and restored his death sentence in 2021, Roszaidi's second appeal was successfully allowed by a five-judge Court of Appeal based on a rare split decision of 3 to 2, with the majority of five judges accepting his claims of diminished responsibility and therefore commuted Roszaidi's death sentence to life imprisonment on 1 December 2022.[134][135][136][137][138][139]
  • 23 November 2015: Just a month before his third birthday, two-year-old Mohamad Daniel bin Mohamad Nasser was found dead in his home, and he was allegedly severely abused by his mother Zaidah (41 years old) and her boyfriend Zaini Jamari (46 years old). Both were arrested and charged with the fatal abuse of Daniel. Instances of the couple's abuse of the boy include forcing Daniel to stand with his hands on his head wearing only a nappy, forced him to eat spoonfuls of dried chilli and stamped on his chest for months till he died. Daniel's father Mohamad Nasser bin Abdul Gani, who was in prison and spent a year searching for his son before receiving news of his death, never got to know his son and only got to see and touch him the first time he saw his son's corpse, which was riddled with over 41 external injuries, including a fatal head injury which was certified to be the cause of Daniel's death. The case was shocking to the extent that several outraged netizens created a petition to the courts for the couple to receive the death penalty. On 24 June 2015, Zaidah and Zaini were found guilty of voluntarily causing grievous hurt and more than 20 charges of child abuse, and on 5 July 2016, Zaidah was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment while Zaini received 12 strokes of the cane and a simultaneous jail term of ten years, much to the displeasure and sadness of Daniel's father and his paternal relatives, who felt the sentences were too light. District judge Bala Reddy, who sentenced the couple, admonished both of them for their ruthless and callous conduct, and for their lack of remorse. Minister of Social and Family Development (MSF) Tan Chuan-jin, who noted the tragic circumstances and severity of the case, called for all Singaporeans to be more mindful of possible signs of child abuse from their neighbours.[140][141][142][143][144]
  • December 2015 – 11 August 2017: A three-year-old girl, only known as Ayeesha, and her younger brother were both relentlessly starved and abused by their biological father and his second wife, and the two siblings were also confined naked in the toilet of Ayeesha's father's flat. The abuse went on for two years before Ayeesha, who was mortally wounded from one of the physical assaults inflicted by her father, died either on the night of 10 August 2017 or the morning of 11 August 2017. The death of Ayeesha, who was then five, led to the arrest of her father, who was charged with murder and the abuse of both Ayeesha and her brother. Ayeesha's father, who stood trial in July 2023, pleaded guilty to child abuse and manslaughter in April 2024, and on account of the "unprecedented" level of cruelty and violence exhibited in this case, the father was sentenced to an "unprecedented" total of 34 years and six months in prison and 12 strokes of the cane.[145]

2016

  • 14 February 2016: Known as the Choa Chu Kang Combined Temple murder, 53-year-old temple helper Tan Poh Huat was hammered to death by a burglar who broke into Choa Chu Kang Combined Temple, and sustaining over 93 external injuries, Tan died from a crushed voice box. Ten days after Tan was murdered, his killer - 47-year-old Loh Suan Lit - was arrested and charged with murder. Loh later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of manslaughter and another charge of burglary, and he was sentenced to jail for 14 years and given six strokes of the cane.[146]
  • 19 February 2016: 25-year-old Muhammad Khairulanwar Bin Rohmat was sentenced by district judge Mathew Joseph to a total of six years and three months' imprisonment and fined S$30,000 for recruiting two underage girls aged 15 and 16 for sexual exploitation and luring them into prostitution. He also admitted to sexual penetration of a minor under 16 years of age with consent. Khairulanwar was the first person to be tried and convicted under the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act 2015.[147][148][149]
  • 21 March 2016: Known as the Circuit Road flat murder, 47-year-old Malaysian national Boh Soon Ho was charged on 7 April 2016 for strangling his 28-year-old girlfriend, Chinese national Zhang Huaxiang; he also had sex with the corpse after he killed her, supposedly over his anger that Zhang was allegedly seeing other men. He fled to Malaysia before he was arrested by the Royal Malaysia Police and brought back to Singapore to face trial. On 8 February 2020, High Court judge Pang Khang Chau found a 51-year-old Boh guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment. Boh's appeal was also dismissed in October 2020.[150][151][152][153][154][155]
  • April 2016: 52-year-old Lim Hong Liang engaged his 26-year-old nephew Ron Lim De Mai and a middleman Ong Hong Chye to hire several men to attack 35-year-old Joshua Koh Kian Yong, the boyfriend of Lim Hong Liang's mistress, 27-year-old Audrey Chen Ying Fang. The attackers were subsequently arrested, convicted and sentenced to jail terms of between 15 months and 14 years and six months, as well as caning. Ron Lim was sentenced to three years' imprisonment and four strokes of the cane. Lim Hong Liang and Ong Hock Chye were found guilty in 2019 and respectively sentenced to six years' imprisonment and five years and six months' imprisonment. Both were granted bail while waiting for the outcomes of the appeals against the district courts' verdicts. Ong later lost his appeal and received an additional three years and six months' jail term for committing another offence while out on bail. Lim was granted a re-trial by the High Court and eventually granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal on the conditions that he must not reoffend for the next 36 months and having to compensate Koh.[156][157][158][159]
  • 7 June 2016: Daryati, a 23-year-old Indonesian domestic worker, stabbed her 59-year-old employer Seow Kim Choo to death in her home at Telok Kurau. She also inflicted two neck wounds on Seow's husband, 57-year-old Ong Thiam Soon, before he managed to restrain her and went out to call for help. Daryati was arrested and charged with murder. At her trial, Daryati claimed that she had confronted Seow to get back her passport, which Seow kept in a safe, and wanted to steal money from a locked drawer so that she could return to Indonesia. In March 2020, the prosecution amended the original murder charge to a lesser charge of murder and did not seek the death penalty. Daryati initially pleaded guilty to the lesser charge of murder but retracted her plea in September 2020 and attempted to escape the murder charge with a defence of diminished responsibility. High Court judge Valerie Thean found Daryati guilty of murder and sentenced her to life imprisonment on 23 April 2021. On 31 March 2022, Daryati's appeal against her conviction was dismissed, thereby finalizing her life sentence and she is currently in prison serving her sentence.[160][161][162][163][164][165][166]
  • 17 June 2016: 38-year-old Saridewi binte Djamani and her 39-year-old Malaysian accomplice Muhammad Haikal bin Abdullah were both arrested for diamorphine trafficking. In July 2018, Saridewi, who was charged with one count of smuggling 30.72g of diamorphine, was sentenced to death while Muhammad Haikal, who was charged with one count of smuggling 28.22g of the same drug and only acted as a courier, was sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane. Throughout the next four years, Saridewi's appeals to overturn her sentence were all rejected, and she was hanged on 28 July 2023 after her five-year incarceration on death row; Saridewi was the first female offender to be executed in Singapore since Yen May Woen in 2004.[167][168][169][170][171][172]
  • 7 July 2016: 27-year-old Canadian national David James Roach robbed a Standard Chartered Singapore bank in Holland Village. He presented a note to the bank teller stating that he had a weapon before making off with S$30,000. After the robbery, Roach immediately fled to Bangkok, where was subsequently charged with violating Thai exchange control laws and money laundering, and sentenced to 14 months in jail. Singapore was unsuccessful at requesting Roach's extradition from Thailand as the two countries have no relevant treaty. Upon his release on 11 January 2018, Roach was deported to Canada via the United Kingdom. Singapore requested Roach's extradition from the United Kingdom on the same day, which led to Roach being detained while in transit at London. To secure the extradition, Singapore assured the United Kingdom that Roach would not be sentenced to caning, a mandatory punishment for robbery under the Singapore Penal Code, if he is found guilty. Roach was extradited on 16 March 2020 from the United Kingdom to Singapore and subsequently charged with robbery and unlawfully removing the money out of Singapore. On 7 July 2021, deputy principal district judge Luke Tan sentenced a 31-year-old Roach to five years' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane for both charges. The Attorney-General's Chambers eventually made arrangements for Roach to have his caning sentence remitted, thus fulfilling the assurance given to the United Kingdom earlier to secure Roach's extradition. No alternative punishment was given to David Roach after his caning was remitted when President Halimah Yacob granted his clemency.[173][174][175][176][177][178][179][180][181][182]
  • 9 July 2016: 64-year-old Toh Sia Guan allegedly caused the death of 52-year-old Goh Eng Thiam, who was found lying motionless on the floor in a coffee shop at Geylang Lorong 23. It was revealed in the trial that Toh and Goh were engaged in an argument, which spurred Toh into going to a hardware store to procure a knife to fight Goh, therefore inflicting several knife wounds onto Goh and one of them - a knife wound on the right arm - cut through a major blood vessel and result in him bleeding to death. On 2 March 2020, High Court judge Aedit bin Abdullah found Toh guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.[183][184][185]
  • 12 July 2016: 48-year-old Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock strangled his girlfriend, 31-year-old Chinese national Cui Yajie, in his car on a quiet road near Gardens by the Bay. He burnt her body in a secluded location in Lim Chu Kang over several days until only a few pieces of charred fabric and a brassiere hook remained. After the police found that Khoo was the last person who interacted with Cui, they arrested Khoo and he led them to where he killed Cui and where he burnt her body. On 19 August 2019, High Court judge Audrey Lim found Khoo guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment.[186][187][188]
  • 26 July 2016: 24-year-old Piang Ngaih Don, a domestic helper from Myanmar, died after being abused by her employer, Gaiyathiri d/o Murugayan, and Gaiyathiri's mother, Prema d/o S. Naraynasamy, over a period of about nine months. She had been physically assaulted almost daily, forced to use the toilet with the door open, and deliberately starved to the point where she weighed only around 24 kg at the time of her death. On the night of 25 July 2016, Gaiyathiri and Prema had beaten up Piang and tied her hand to a window grille before leaving her on the floor. Piang eventually died in the morning of 26 July 2016 due to hypoxic ischaemic encephalopathy with severe blunt trauma to her neck. An autopsy revealed that she had suffered multiple injuries and was so emaciated and undernourished that she would have died of starvation if the ill-treatment had been prolonged. Gaiyathiri, Prema, and Gaiyathiri's husband, former policeman Kevin Chelvam, were arrested and charged in court for their respective roles in causing Piang's death. In February 2021, Gaiyathiri, who was initially charged with murder, pleaded guilty to reduced charges of culpable homicide, among others, after she qualified for the defence of diminished responsibility. A 2019 report by psychiatrists who assessed her had concluded that she suffered from major depressive disorder and obsessive compulsive personality disorder, which had substantially contributed to her offences. On 22 June 2021, despite the prosecution's arguments for life imprisonment, a 41-year-old Gaiyathiri was sentenced to 30 years' imprisonment by High Court judge See Kee Oon for culpable homicide and voluntarily causing hurt. Gaiyathiri's appeal was dismissed on 29 June 2022. Chelvam had been suspended from the Singapore Police Force and charged on 11 August 2016 for voluntarily causing hurt to Piang and removing evidence, among other charges. Prema was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for murder but she was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment on 9 January 2023 for 48 charges of maid abuse and causing hurt, before the sentence of Prema was increased to 17 years in June 2023 after she was found guilty of the 49th and final charge of causing evidence of a homicidal case to disappear. As of 2023, Chelvam's case is still pending in court.[189][190][191][192][193][194][195][196][197]
  • 11 August 2016: Mohamed Shalleh Abdul Latiff, a Singaporean delivery driver, was arrested for trafficking 54.04g of diamorphine. His defence was that he believed he was delivering contraband cigarettes for a friend to whom he owed money, and he did not verify the contents of the bag as he trusted his friend, the trial court ruled that his relationship with the friend was not close enough for him to have so much trust to the friend. Mohamed Shalleh was found guilty and sentenced to death in January 2019. His appeal was dismissed in 2022 and after spending four years on death row, Mohamed Shalleh, then 39 years old, was hanged at Changi Prison on 3 August 2023.[198][199][200]
  • October 2016: Between 15 and 22 October 2016, an unemployed couple – Ridzuan bin Mega Abdul Rahman and Azlin binte Arujunah – repeatedly splashed hot water on their five-year-old son at their flat in Toa Payoh until he collapsed and eventually died in hospital on 23 October from his scald injuries, which covered about three-quarters of his body. The couple had also committed other acts of abuse against their son, including locking him up in a pet cage, pinching him with a pair of pliers, hitting him with a broom, and burning his palm with a heated spoon. The couple were initially charged with murder, but later had their charges reduced to causing grievous hurt by dangerous means. The prosecutors also described the case as "one of the worst cases of child abuse" in Singapore. On 13 July 2020, High Court judge Valerie Thean sentenced the couple, both aged 28, to 27 years' imprisonment each; Ridzuan was also sentenced to 24 strokes of the cane while Azlin was sentenced to an additional year in jail in lieu of caning since Singapore law does not allow caning for women. On 12 July 2022, the prosecution's appeal against both Ridzuan's sentence and Azlin's conviction was allowed by the Court of Appeal, which consequently increased Ridzuan's original 27-year sentence to life imprisonment for child abuse and grievous hurt, while they found Azlin guilty of the original charge of murder. For the charge of murdering her son, Azlin was sentenced to life imprisonment three months later on 18 October 2022, despite the prosecution strongly urged the Court of Appeal to impose the death penalty on her.[201][202][203][204][205][206]
  • 19 – 24 October 2016: Poh Yuan Nie, former principal of a private tuition centre, masterminded a sophisticated cheating scheme to help six students from China to cheat in their O-level examinations. Poh, together with three tutors (her niece Fiona Poh Min, her ex-girlfriend Tan Jia Yan and Chinese national Feng Riwen), made use of Bluetooth devices and video-calling application FaceTime to capture images of the exam papers and work out answers to share with the six students. On 24 October, the scheme was exposed when one of the students was discovered cheating, which caused Poh and her three colleagues to be arrested. In April 2018, 31-year-old Tan Jia Yan pleaded guilty to 27 cheating charges, and was sentenced to three years' jail a year after her conviction. On 7 July 2020, after a 20-day trial that dragged on for 18 months, District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt found Poh, her niece Fiona and Feng guilty, and Poh was sentenced to four years in prison, while 33-year-old Fiona was sentenced to three years' imprisonment; and 28-year-old Feng was sentenced to jail for two years and four months (equivalent to 28 months). Poh and her niece remained out on bail while appealing against their conviction, and both the High Court and Court of Appeal dismissed their appeal. However, while Fiona was jailed after the end of her appeal hearing, Poh was uncontactable since September 2022 and she failed to show up in court to serve her sentence during that month. An arrest warrant was issued in November 2022, but Poh was suspected to have fled the country and she could not be located. In January 2023, an Interpol red notice was issued for Poh's arrest, and as of 2024, Poh remains on the run.[207]
  • 25 November 2016: 23-year-old Malaysian national Ahmad Muin bin Yaacob robbed 54-year-old Maimunah binte Awang of her jewellery at Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal and killed her by stabbing her with a pair of grass cutters and bludgeoning her on the head until she became motionless. He then abandoned her body in a drain and fled back to Malaysia. Maimunah's body was discovered the next day. The Singapore Police Force enlisted the help of the Royal Malaysia Police to arrest Ahmad on 18 December 2016 and extradite him to Singapore, where he was charged with murder on 21 December 2016. On 4 November 2020, High Court judge Aedit bin Abdullah found Ahmad guilty of murder and sentenced him to life imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane.[208][209][210][211][212]

2017

  • 20 January 2017: 41-year-old Teo Ghim Heng got into an argument with his pregnant wife, 39-year-old Choong Pei Shan, at their flat in Woodlands. He strangled her and their daughter, four-year-old Teo Zi Ning, and burnt their bodies. Their charred bodies were found eight days later. Teo was charged with the murders of his wife and daughter. He also initially faced a third charge of murder of his unborn child, but the charge was stood down. On 12 November 2020, Teo was found guilty of two counts of murder and sentenced to death by High Court judge Kannan Ramesh. Teo also lost his appeal against the verdict of capital punishment on 23 February 2022, and as a final resort to avoid execution, Teo plans to seek an official pardon from the President of Singapore.[213][214][215][216][217][218][219][220]
  • 2 March 2017: 39-year-old American MMA trainer Joshua Robinson was sentenced by district judge Crystal Ong to four years' imprisonment after pleading guilty on 13 February 2017 to four counts of making obscene films and three counts of having consensual sex with minors. Robinson had unprotected sex with two 15-year-old girls on separate occasions in 2013 and 2015 in his apartment at Upper Circular Road, and had filmed the encounters with his mobile phone. On 25 June 2015, after the second girl told her parents and made a police report, the police seized Robinson's computer and portable hard drive and found 5,902 obscene films, of which 321 contained child pornography. On 28 July 2015, while out on bail, Robinson visited a martial arts gym and showed an obscene video to a six-year-old girl while her father was training; the girl told her father later and he called the police. After Robinson was sentenced on 2 March 2017, there was significant public outrage as Robinson was perceived to have received a "light" sentence; some people questioned whether it was because he was a foreigner, while others asked why he was not sentenced to caning. More than 27,000 people signed an online petition calling for a revision of the sentence. On 8 March 2017, the Attorney-General's Chambers stated that the public prosecutor would not be appealing against Robinson's sentence, and explained that the sentence was broadly in line with relevant sentencing precedents and that Robinson was not sentenced to caning because caning is not a penalty for any of the offences he was charged with. On the same day, Law Minister K. Shanmugam mentioned that the government would be considering what approaches are necessary for offenders like Robinson to be dealt with more severely through higher penalties.[221][222][223]
  • 12 March 2017: Known as the St James Power Station murder, 34-year-old Satheesh Kumar Manogaran and his cousin, 28-year-old Naveen Lal Pillar, were attacked by a group of three men – 21-year-old Muhammad Khalid bin Kamarudin, 22-year-old Muhammad Faizal bin Md Jamal and 26-year-old Shawalludin bin Sa'adon – near St James Power Station due to a previous conflict between Satheesh and Shawalludin. Satheesh, who sustained several stab wounds, was pronounced dead in hospital while Naveen survived his injuries. The police classified the case as a murder case. The three men, along with two other men – 27-year-old Muhammad Hisham bin Hassan and 19-year-old Muhd Firdaus bin Abdullah – were arrested and respectively charged with different offences. On 2 January 2018, Hisham was sentenced to 18 months' imprisonment for harbouring Khalid and Faizal, as well as abetting the trio to cause hurt to Satheesh and Naveen. On 30 May 2018, Firdaus was sentenced to six years and two months' jail and five strokes of the cane for harbouring Khalid and Faizal and other unrelated offences. On 26 November 2018, Shawalludin was sentenced to five years and six months' jail and six strokes of the cane for voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Satheesh. On 14 May 2019, Faizal, who was initially facing a murder charge together with Khalid, was sentenced to eight years and six months' jail and eight strokes of the cane for voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Satheesh, with another charge of causing hurt to Naveen. As of July 2021, Khalid is pending trial for murder.[224][225][226][227]
  • 21 June 2017: Known as the Bedok double murder, 41-year-old Indonesian maid Khasanah had murdered her elderly employer 79-year-old Chia Ngim Fong, and his 78-year-old wife Chin Sek Fah in the couple's Bedok flat. Khasanah fled to Indonesia and was caught shortly after entering the country. Khasanah was not extradited back to Singapore for trial given that a local law decreed that Indonesians who committed crimes overseas but caught in their home country should be tried in their home country. The Singapore Police Force and Indonesian national police (Polri) thus worked together to investigate the Bedok double murder case. With these efforts, Khasanah was tried in Indonesia for the couple's murders and the local courts found her guilty of the murders. Originally sentenced to life imprisonment, Khasanah's life sentence was reduced to 20 years' of imprisonment upon her appeal, and she was ordered to serve her jail term in an Indonesian prison.[228][229]
  • 10 July 2017: 69-year-old Tan Nam Seng stabbed his son-in-law, 38-year-old Spencer Tuppani, in broad daylight at Telok Ayer Street. Tuppani ran and collapsed outside an eatery on Boon Tat Street. Tan also prevented others from rendering help to Tuppani, leading to the latter's death in hospital shortly after. Tan was initially charged with murder on 12 July 2017 and remanded for three weeks for psychiatric evaluation. On 21 September 2020, High Court judge Dedar Singh Gill sentenced Tan to eight years and six months' imprisonment for culpable homicide not amounting to murder as Tan was found to be suffering from a major depressive disorder.[230][231][232]
  • 16 August 2017: 48-year-old Mohammad Rosli Abdul Rahim, who was dissatisfied with the share of the monthly rent, argued with his 35-year-old flatmate Mohammad Roslan Zaini before he went into the kitchen to take a knife and stabbed Roslan out of anger due to his unpleasant remarks and alleged insults of Rosli's mother during the heated argument. Roslan, who was stabbed in the heart, died at a field outside his Teck Whye flat. Rosli was arrested and charged for murder, and he tried to argue that he was gravely provoked into killing Roslan out of a loss of self-control by anger. After a trial that took place from 16 February 2021 to 9 November 2021, Rosli was found guilty of murder, and two months later, he was sentenced to life imprisonment on 13 January 2022. Rosli is currently appealing against his murder conviction and sentence, with leading criminal lawyer Eugene Thuraisingam set to represent him in his appeal.[233][234][235][236]
  • 2 September 2017: Romanian National Iosif Kiss and Frenchman David Weidmann cheated shipping firm Oceanic Group of $1.5 million. Weismann gave part of the money to a Dutchman named Nikolic Predrag and a Frenchwoman Nikolic Dalida. Kiss and Weidmann were arrested at Woodlands Checkpoint on the night of the crime. On 25 June 2018, Nikolic Predrag and Nikolic Dalida were sentenced to 2 and a half years imprisonment, while on 20 August 2018, Iosif Kiss and David Weidmann were sentenced to 3 years and 8 months imprisonment.[237]

2018

  • 26 January 2018: 36-year-old cleaning supervisor Munusamy Ramarmurth, a Malaysian working in Singapore for 14 years, was discovered importing 57.54g of heroin when the police arrested him and searched his motorcycle parked along Harbourfront Avenue. The judge Audrey Lim of the High Court found that he was not a courier and she disbelieved Munusamy's claim that he thought he was carrying stolen phones since he admitted to the presence of drugs to the police at first, hence Munusamy was given the mandatory death penalty on 15 November 2021.[238][239]
  • 25 June 2018: At a flat in Choa Chu Kang, 17-year-old Zin Mar Nwe, a Myanmar citizen and domestic maid, was arrested for murdering 70-year-old Mehrotra Shashi, who travelled from India to Singapore to visit her son-in-law who was Zin's employer. Subsequently, to protect the identity of one of the trial witnesses who was below 18, the courts issued a gag order to prohibit newspapers from reporting the name and address of the victim or her family. Zin's age was initially believed to be 23 in 2018 based on her passport before the trial revealed her real age was 17. After a trial between November 2021 and May 2023, Zin was found guilty of murder by Justice Andre Maniam of the High Court on 18 May 2023, and more than a month later, on 4 July 2023, Zin Mar Nwe was sentenced to life imprisonment, because the law decreed that on behalf of her age of 17 at the time of the murder, Zin cannot receive the death sentence despite committing murder.[240][241][242][243]
  • 19 July 2018: 66-year-old retiree Seet Cher Hng armed himself with three knives and went to the carpark near ITE College Central, where he attacked his 56-year-old ex-wife Low Hwee Geok (or Michelle Low), with whom he had a daughter since they married in 1993 before they divorced in 2011. Seet apparently killed Low by stabbing her eight times before stabbing himself with his murder weapons. Seet was taken to hospital where he was treated and survived his wounds, and later charged with murder after the police officially arrested him in the hospital. Seet was said to be unhappy for years over Low's alleged infidelity and supposedly unfair division of their matrimonial assets, which motivated him to attack Low after she ignored his persistent requests for a share of $500,000 these last seven years. Seet was found guilty of murder on 14 September 2021, and eight days later, High Court judge Aedit Abdullah sentenced Seet to life imprisonment on 22 September 2021.[244][245][246]
  • 25 July 2018 A group of men, Arjun Retnavelu, Dinesh Kumar Ruvy, Victor Alexander Arumugam, Haresh Shanmuganathan and youth offender Sharvin Raj Suraj attacked 26 year old Dhines Selvarajah with a samurai sword, baton and chopper. They were arrested 22 hours after the attack. It was discovered that Arjun had previous disputes with the victim which he wanted to settle. On 5 July 2019, Sharvin was sentenced to a year of reformative training, while Victor was sentenced to 21 months jail. Haresh was sentenced to 3 years imprisonment and 6 strokes of the cane, Arjun sentenced to 9 years corrective training and 24 strokes of the cane, and Dinesh to 8 years and 6 strokes.
  • 28 July 2018: 29-year-old Bangladeshi and former construction worker Sheikh Md Razan, having disguised himself as a Sikh by putting on a turban, entered a pawnshop in Boon Lay with an attempt to rob the shop. Using a fake gun and a newly bought chopper, he tried to coerce the employees to hand over any valuables and money to him, but he left empty-handed after failing to do so (as the employees had either being frozen with fear or hid themselves). Before leaving the pawnshop, Sheikh also left behind a device which he claimed to be a "bomb belt" (which made the employees believed it was real). The bomb belt was later revealed to be a fake after the police's bomb experts tested it. After a 5-day-long manhunt, Sheikh, who shaved off his beard and went into hiding, was arrested on 1 August 2018 and subsequently charged with attempted armed robbery. He was also charged with overstaying in Singapore since December 2017, as well as using a forged work permit to obtain employment. On 30 September 2019, Sheikh, who pleaded guilty to the offences he committed, was sentenced to 3 years and six months' imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane.[247][248][249]
  • 1 September 2018: In her family's flat in Bukit Batok, four-year-old Nursabrina "Sabrina" Agustiani Abdullah was allegedly kicked to death by her 25-year-old stepfather Muhammad Salihin Ismail, who married her mother in 2016 when Sabrina was only two. Salihin, who also fathered a pair of twin boys after his marriage, was charged with murder and child abuse two days after Sabrina died. The cause of death were some fatal abdominal injuries where Salihin kicked his stepdaughter in two successive incidents. Salihin, in his trial, stated that he and his wife tries to teach Sabrina to use the toilet properly in preparation for school, and out of anger over Sabrina still urinating the floor at her age, Salihin kicked in front of him and the blow somehow reached Sabrina's abdomen. Salihin also stated he tried to use CPR to revive her upon finding her unresponsive and overall, he did not intend to kill her. On 1 March 2022, over a year after his trial began (in February 2021), Salihin, who was defended by Eugene Thuraisingam, was acquitted of murder and instead found guilty of voluntarily causing grievous hurt, as the High Court's Justice Pang Khang Chau accepted that Salihin may have intentionally kicked Sabrina, he did so in the fit of anger and had no intent to kick any particular location of the girl's body, specifically the part that has the fatal injury, which cannot amount to a tangible murder conviction. On 9 May 2022, for causing grievous hurt to his stepdaughter, Salihin was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane, with effect from the date of his arrest. The prosecution later appealed, and Salihin was convicted of murder on 2 April 2024, and sentenced to life imprisonment with 12 strokes of the cane.[250][251][252][253]
  • September 2018 – 28 June 2019: 31-year-old Lin Rongxin, a Chinese national who worked as a machinery technician in Singapore for 12 years, was arrested for a total of 64 rape and sexual assault charges involving at least twenty females (including 15 teenagers aged between 14 and 19). Lin, who was married with one son, was found to have used social media platforms like WeChat, and made use of several personas to lure underaged girls and adult women, and even extort them while pretending to be their saviours from harassment under another identity. Three of the underaged girls even became his girlfriends at one point without knowing he was the one who raped them. Lin spent three years awaiting trial before he pleaded guilty to seven out of 64 charges on 28 November 2022. He was consequently sentenced to 31 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane by Justice Hoo Sheau Peng, who admonished Lin as a "depraved sexual predator" for the trauma he inflicted on the victims and high level of premeditation behind the crimes.[254][255][256]
  • 19 November 2018: Prior to her murder, 35-year-old Desiree Tan Jiaping, who was then suffering from anxiety disorder and depression, threatened to kill her elderly father Tan Tian Chye before he strangled her to death during the confrontation. Tan, who was initially charged with murder, later pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of culpable homicide as a result of his clinical depression condition. It was also revealed that his daughter had been demanding the parents' attention and abused them despite Tan and his wife giving their care for her. The mitigating and tragic circumstances allowed the High Court to show leniency and sentenced Tan to two years and nine months in jail on 12 October 2020. Given that the sentence was backdated to the date of his arrest, and he served with good behaviour during his 22-month remand period behind bars, 66-year-old Tan Tian Chye was released from jail on one-third remission for good behaviour on the same day he was sentenced.[246][257]
  • 30 December 2018: Ahmed Salim, a 31-year-old Bangladeshi painter, strangled his 34-year-old girlfriend Nurhidayati Wartono Surata, an Indonesian domestic worker, at the Golden Dragon Hotel in Geylang. Nurhidayati's body was found later that night by a hotel receptionist. Ahmed was arrested the next day and charged with murder on 2 January 2019. When his trial started in September 2020, Ahmed initially defended himself by saying that he was provoked into killing Nurhidayati, but High Court judge Mavis Chionh found that he had the intention to murder Nurhidayati when he found out that she was unfaithful to him and seeing other men. On 14 December 2020, Ahmed was sentenced to death for murder, and his appeal to Court of Appeal was rejected on 19 January 2022. Ahmed was hanged on 28 February 2024 after his clemency plea to President Tharman Shanmugaratnam was rejected.[258][259][260][261][262][263][264][265][266][267]

2019

  • 12 March 2019: Shortly after he was fired from his job for the second time due to poor work performance, 24-year-old former warehouse employee and Malaysian Yee Jing Man armed himself with a knife and went to his former workplace at Sungei Kadut to attack his three employers in full view of his former colleagues. One of them, 29-year-old Chinese businessman Lin Xinjie was slashed several times on the neck and died, while another, 30-year-old Li Mingqiao, was grievously slashed on his scalp, face and fractured his jaw. In front of his 29-year-old third employer Ryan Pan Zai Xing (who escaped unscathed), Yee tried to kill himself by slashing his wrists and stabbing his own abdomen (which lacerated his liver) and was taken to hospital by the incoming police officers. Yee later recovered, and he was remanded in prison for charges of murder and voluntarily causing grievous hurt. Yee, who was found to be suffering from depression at the time of the offences, was later convicted of lesser offences of culpable homicide and voluntarily causing grievous hurt, and sentenced to a total of 20 years' imprisonment with no caning on 9 June 2021.[268]
  • 29 May 2019: 42-year-old lawyer Jeffrey Ong Su Aun was arrested in Kuala Lumpur with a stolen Malaysian passport and extradited to Singapore after allegedly misappropriating what prosecutors believed to be "the largest amount of money ever misappropriated by a lawyer in Singapore". He has been held in remand since June 2019 and faced 76 charges including cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust as an attorney in a case involving over S$75 million. The case first came to light after precision engineering firm Allied Technologies, one of Ong's clients, filed a police report in May 2019 over S$33.4 million having gone missing from its escrow account.[269] On 17 July 2023, Ong, who was disbarred in 2022, was found guilty and sentenced to 19 years in prison.[270]
  • 2 July 2019: Known as the 2019 Orchard Towers murder, 31-year-old Satheesh Noel s/o Gobidass was killed in a fight at Orchard Towers involving six other men and one woman: 27-year-old Tan Sen Yang, 26-year-old Joel Tan Yun Sheng, 26-year-old Chan Jia Xing, 26-year-old Ang Da Yuan, 25-year-old Loo Boon Chong, 22-year-old Tan Hong Sheng, and 22-year-old Natalie Siow Yu Zhen. On that day, the seven, along with their friends, had been drinking at a club in Orchard Towers. Ang got into a fight with Satheesh, while Siow, Joel Tan and Tan Sen Yang joined in. During the fight, Tan Sen Yang slashed Satheesh with a karambit; Satheesh eventually collapsed and died in hospital later due to a fatal stab wound to the neck. The seven were arrested and initially charged with murder by common intention on 4 July 2019. However, six of them eventually had their charges reduced to voluntarily causing hurt, consorting with a person possessing an offensive weapon, obstructing justice by discarding evidence, rioting, being a member of an unlawful assembly to assault a person, or any combination of these charges. On 4 March 2020, Ang was sentenced to eight months' jail and six strokes of the cane, while Joel Tan was sentenced to four weeks' jail. Siow was sentenced on 9 October 2020 to five months' jail. On 15 October 2020, Chan was given a conditional warning, which required him to refrain from criminal conduct for a year or else he would be prosecuted for the original offence along with any new offences committed. Shortly after Chan was sentenced, there were allegations on social media that Chan and others had received preferential treatment in sentencing because of their race. On 16 October 2020, the Attorney-General's Chambers refuted the allegations and directed the police to investigate those responsible for the allegations that are potentially in contempt of court. Loo was sentenced in January 2021 to five months' jail and fined S$1,000. Tan Hong Sheng, who had prior convictions for rioting and was out on bail at the time of the Orchard Towers incident, was sentenced on 5 March 2021 to four years and nine months' jail and 12 strokes of the cane. On 3 October 2023, Tan Sen Yang officially stood trial for one count of murder at the High Court.[271][272][273][274][275] Tan was found guilty of the murder charge and was sentenced to life imprisonment with 12 strokes of the cane on 25th April 2024, more than 4 years after the murder took place in July 2019.[276]
  • 1 September 2019: 82-year-old Pak Kian Huat, alias Pek Kiah Huat, used a chopper to inflict 54 injuries on his longtime partner Lim Soy Moi after she refused to let him move to a bigger bedroom in their Toa Payoh flat. As a result of the brutal attack, 79-year-old Lim died. Pak, who had four children with Lim (whom he first met in the 1950s), was charged with murder, but subsequently, Pak's charge was reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and he was originally slated to plead guilty in September 2022, but however, on the date of his trial, Pak disputed some of the facts and demanded for a death sentence, resulting in the trial being delayed until 22 May 2023, when Pak finally pleaded guilty and was convicted of the culpable homicide charge. On the same day, Justice See Kee Oon sentenced Pak to 15 years' jail for the "vicious" and "brutal" killing of Lim.[277]
  • October 2019: Four men – 37-year-old Liong Tianwei, 26-year-old Leonard Teo Min Xuan, 19-year-old Justin Lee Han Shi and 17-year-old Abdillah bin Sabaruddin – were arrested for their suspected involvement in circulating obscene materials and promoting vice activities through a Telegram chat group called "SG Nasi Lemak". The chat group was used as a platform for sharing obscene photos and videos of women in Singapore. When it was still active, it had more than 44,000 members and members had to pay S$30 as an "entry fee" after its membership numbers spiked in the months before the arrests. On 16 October 2020, Lee and Abdillah (whose name was redacted in news reports as he was below 18 when he committed the offence) were sentenced to probation. Liong was sentenced to nine weeks' imprisonment and a fine of S$26,000 on 9 March 2021. On 3 June 2021, Teo was sentenced to mandatory treatment for a year after a report from the Institute of Mental Health diagnosed him with major depressive disorder and mentioned that it contributed to his offences.[278][279][280][281][282][283]
  • 27 October 2019: Known as the Commonwealth double murders, 22-year-old Gabriel Lien Goh was arrested after he was alleged to have murdered both his mother and grandmother at their residential HDB block in Commonwealth, Singapore. Goh was charged with murdering his mother, 54-year-old Lee Soh Mui, a retired school teacher, the next day. On 18 November 2019, Goh was brought to court to be charged with murder in relation to the death of his grandmother, 90-year-old See Keng Keng. Goh was also found to be consuming drugs prior to his homicidal crime spree and he was first convicted and sentenced to 22 months' imprisonment on 11 November 2021 for both possession and consumption of drugs. On 23 September 2022, Goh was acquitted of lower charges of culpable homicide and he was sentenced to indefinite detention under the President's Pleasure as a result of him being of unsound mind as induced by drugs at the time he killed his mother and grandmother.[284][285][286][287]
  • 8 November 2019: Nine-month-old male infant Izz Fayyaz Zayani Ahmad died from bleeding in the brain due to a traumatic head injury during his hospitalization. His mother's boyfriend, 27-year-old Mohamed Aliff Mohamed Yusoff, was arrested for voluntarily causing grievous hurt before the charge was upgraded to murder. It was alleged that Aliff intentionally caused the fatal head injuries to Izz by pushing his head against the floorboard of his van between 10pm on the night of 7 November and 12.15am the next day. Yet Aliff insisted that the boy sustained the injuries due to an accidental fall. On 13 July 2022, 29-year-old Aliff was found guilty of murder, and therefore he was sentenced to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane on 11 August 2022, after the prosecution decided to not pursue the death penalty during his trial sentencing phase. Aliff's appeal against his conviction was rejected on 11 September 2023.[288][289][290][291]

See also

References

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