The Best I Could (23 page)

According to forensic pathologist Dr Paul Chui, Fujii suffocated to death because of her facial injuries. He testified that she had six fractures on her face which caused swelling in the tissues as well as bleeding into the tissues of the nasal passage. The jaw fracture also caused her tongue to block air from entering her lungs.

Police found a palm print, including a thumbprint, on the wall of the room. However, they were not able to trace whom the prints belonged to because, at that time, only fingerprints of known criminals were available in the police database. Abdul Nasir did not have a record. As there were no further leads, the case was put aside.

Some 18 months later in Woodlands, Abdul Nasir attempted to rob and strangle a taxi driver. While trying to escape, he was caught by police and arrested for attempted robbery and attempted murder. At the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), his fingerprints were taken and sent to be cross-checked against recorded fingerprints. It was then discovered that the fingerprints found at the Oriental Hotel murder scene belonged to Abdul Nasir.

Investigations into the attempted robbery and attempted murder of the taxi driver were shelved, and Abdul Nasir found himself facing a murder charge. He confessed to being one of the robbers at the hotel. On the back of his statement, his friend Abdul Rahman was also arrested and subsequently sentenced to 10 years jail for the charge of robbery with causing hurt. But since Abdul Nasir had inflicted the deadly blow on Fujii, he was charged with murder. I was assigned to defend him and I chose Amolat Singh as my assisting counsel. At that time, the press referred to us as “Batman and Robin”.

We went to see Abdul Nasir and received his instructions. He admitted that he had punched Fujii and that she had fallen heavily. He explained that he had bent down to take her wallet and as he was getting up, he felt dizzy because of some pills he had taken earlier. To balance himself, he held on to the wall, but it did not help and he fell on her. It was accidental. In one of the statements he made to the police, Abdul Nasir stated that he had stamped on her face. According to him, however, he had told the interpreter that he had stepped on her face but she wrote “stamped”. I cross-examined the interpreter very strenuously on this matter. She admitted that though the Malay word he used was “stepped”, he had demonstrated to her a stamping action. The demonstration was a stamping action but his word was “stepped”. She finally conceded that it was not her business to interpret the action but to translate exactly what he had said. We argued that the fingerprints on the wall were the result of Abdul Nasir having to steady himself and that the stepping on the victim’s face was accidental. There was no intention to cause death or any injury.

Of course the deputy public prosecutor’s interpretation was different. He said Abdul Nasir was holding on to the wall to steady himself so that he could use force to stamp on the victim’s face. Our counter-argument was that if that was so, why wasn’t he charged for murder under the particular limp where the intention was to cause death and nothing else. The charge said “an act which is likely to cause death”. It was a technical argument, but if there was truth in what the DPP said, the charge had to reflect an intention to kill. The charge did not reflect this. There were arguments all around and judgment was reserved for Justice Choo Han Teck to give his verdict.

The DPP in this case was Francis Seng who was then the acting head of crime in the Attorney-General’s Chambers. He had not come to court for a long time as he had been doing mostly administrative work, but he participated in this trial as it was a high profile case. The Japanese TV media was covering the proceedings, and with the Japanese government and population upset over the incident, the Singapore government was going to make sure that justice was done as they didn’t want the incident to stop Japanese tourists from visiting Singapore.

We also cross-examined the forensic pathologist on the force used by Abdul Nasir and matters related to it. I believe the pathologist was quite new as his evidence was not convincing. He tended to side with the defence a little more than expected. The judge also made Abdul Nasir draw the tread pattern of the shoes that he was wearing at the time. According to Abdul Nasir, he was wearing heavy boots and the soles were essentially of metal. He showed the design and if you look at the drawing you would know that if the shoe had landed on somebody’s face, it would definitely cause great damage.

All these points were argued and taken into consideration. The verdict was to be given at about 4.00 or 5.00 pm. The registrar, Mr Chiam Boon Keng, came up to court and said: “After the conviction, whatever application you wish to make for the disposal of the exhibits, please make it in chambers because it would be quite messy after the death sentence is passed because of the emotions in open court.”

I remember telling Chiam, “What do you mean when the death sentence is passed? We do not know yet whether he would be convicted or not.”

Chiam replied, “Okay, I’m sorry, but I just thought that he would be convicted.”

At 5.00 pm, Justice Choo came back into court and acquitted my client of murder. He believed that there was no intention to kill and it was possible that what Abdul Nasir said could be true. He was giving him the benefit of the doubt. He sentenced my client to 18 years for the other charge of robbery with hurt. We were very happy that we got an acquittal. I remember Abdul Nasir thanking me and I told him he was not going to get any chocolates and milk in prison. He laughed as I left the court to meet his sisters who were very grateful. We thought that this would be the end of the matter. But the prosecution was not happy with the decision and appealed.

The Court of Appeal comprised Justice of Appeal M Karthigesu, who was the presiding judge, Justice of Appeal L P Thean and Justice Goh Joon Seng. There was a split decision. The appeal was dismissed with the sentence to stay. Justice Karthigesu and Justice Goh dismissed the appeal. Justice Thean, in a dissenting judgment, was in favour of allowing the appeal. It came as a surprise to me because as I was arguing the case before the Court of Appeal, I thought that Justice Thean was with me—he was nodding his head and asking questions while the other two were quiet. So, when I was told that there was a dissenting judgment and Justice Thean will read his dissenting judgment after the majority judgment had been read, I thought: “Oh my God, that means I’ve lost the appeal.” I thought Justice Thean was going to dismiss the appeal and the other two would be allowing the appeal but it happened the other way around. I don’t know why Justice Thean dissented. Today, although we are senior consultants at KhattarWong, I’ve never asked him why. I don’t think it’s fair to do that.

Abdul Nasir escaped by the skin of his teeth and he was taken to prison. We thought that that was the end of the matter but it wasn’t. The prosecution brought on a charge of kidnapping a police officer while in custody in the CID. With another detainee, Abdul Nasir had held a female police officer and asked for ransom—they wanted a getaway car, a gun and some money. While negotiations were under way, an elite police squad burst into the detention area where Nasir and his accomplice were holding the policewoman captive. They were arrested and subsequently charged with kidnapping. Abdul Nasir’s accomplice was later found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death. I suppose the authorities were hoping that Abdul Nasir would also receive a death sentence for the murder of Fujii. When he didn’t, they brought the kidnapping charge on him. Abdul Nasir again asked for me to be his defence counsel. I believe he had some faith in me. I got Amolat Singh to assist me once again.

We went to visit him in prison to take his instructions. I asked him, “Why the hell did you do this?” He said: “First I was arrested for robbing a taxi driver. When I was brought to the CID, the police said I would be charged for the murder of a Japanese lady. I was in shock, confused and worried.”

That day itself he had bought some milk and six bars of chocolate which were kept by the police while he was in custody. It seemed he asked for them but his request was turned down. He claimed that he quarrelled with the police officer, demanding to know why he couldn’t have his own things. He said that he would eat the chocolates in front of them to allay any fears they might have but they refused. He saw other inmates enjoying food that their families had brought for them or they had brought themselves. He was frustrated and said to this particular detainee: “Hey, look, since both of us are going to hang, why don’t we kidnap the woman police officer?” They decided that they might not succeed on their own and asked two other detainees to assist. Those detainees were going to be charged for a possession of firearm offence which would also have given them a life sentence. (One of them eventually became my client. He pleaded guilty and received life imprisonment.) They initially agreed to join Abdul Nasir and his new accomplice but decided against it at the last moment as they felt it would not succeed. So, Nasir and the other detainee carried out their plan to kidnap the police officer. The plan was simple. They decided that one of them would pretend to be ill and the other would call for help. The plan worked in that they managed to get a hold of the officer. I thought that the incident would not have happened if the police had given Abdul Nasir his milk and chocolates.

The kidnap case went to trial. Amolat and I produced the accomplice who said it was all his idea and that Abdul Nasir had played a very passive role. We tried to argue this case by referring to the Hansard parliamentary reports that this was not the type of kidnapping legislators had in mind when they passed the law. It was to prevent rich people from being taken for ransom. But looking at the law strictly, you could fit in any sort of situation, even Abdul Nasir’s.

Finally, Justice Sam Sinnathuray, who heard the case, found him guilty and asked for arguments in the afternoon for sentence. DPP Madhavan, who is now a lecturer in a polytechnic, argued for the death sentence. He put forward a very strong case. I counter-argued that the death sentence should not be imposed and gave the reasons. After listening to our arguments, Justice Sinnathuray reserved the sentence to the late afternoon. When he returned, he sentenced Abdul Nasir to life imprisonment but ruled that Abdul Nasir would serve the life imprisonment only after serving the sentence for armed robbery which Justice Choo had imposed. This meant that the life sentence and the sentence of 18 years would run consecutively. He said it did not make sense that the sentences be allowed to run concurrently because Abdul Nasir had committed two very serious offences.

I was quite happy with the verdict because as far as I was concerned, I had saved Abdul Nasir from the gallows twice. I told him to be satisfied with the outcome. Life imprisonment, which is 20 years less the one-third remission for good behaviour, means only 13 years. So, he had 13 years plus 12 years—that is, plus the 18 years less the one-third remission—totalling 25 years which he had to serve. He would still be a young man after his sentence. Abdul Nasir was 25 years old at the time of the Oriental Hotel incident in 1994. I advised him to forget about appealing.

Abdul Nasir asked for me to visit him again in prison because he wanted me to argue the appeal that he had taken upon himself to lodge. I told the registrar that I was not interested and I didn’t think that he should be assigned any counsel anymore as there was no death sentence involved. I was not going to argue it as I thought the sentence was fair. Justice Sinnathuray could have imposed the death sentence and justified it if he wanted to. He had shown Abdul Nasir some compassion.

Abdul Nasir was not happy. He filed and argued his appeal on his own. After listening to his appeal, the Court of Appeal decided that it would be dismissed. On studying the matter further, the Court of Appeal concluded that it was incorrect to interpret life imprisonment as a 20-year imprisonment. Life imprisonment should be till the end of natural life with entitlement to parole after 20 years. Abdul Nasir was not affected by this change because it was to apply to all future cases. So, because of this case, Abdul Nasir vs the Public Prosecutor, the interpretation of the law was changed from “life” to “natural life”. I don’t know if Abdul Nasir realised what he had done but if he did, I suppose he wouldn’t care.

They say that sometimes justice and law are distant cousins. In the case of some countries, you’ll be lucky to say that justice and law have the same parents. In Singapore’s case, it is sad to say that sometimes we feel that justice and law seem to be indifferent to each other. The law says something but when it is interpreted in the courts, it says something else. Most of the time, it is to the detriment of the accused person. This is sad. If it is not kept in check, one day we’ll come to a stage when justice and law will not only be indifferent to each other, it can be hostile. That will be a sad day for Singapore.

The case in question is that of 16-year-old Muhammad Nasir Abdul Aziz who killed his lover’s husband, Manap Sarlip, at Whampoa Drive in 2007. Singaporeans were shocked when they read that a disc jockey had been found dead outside his flat. He had been stabbed viciously in the chest and through the neck several times. Any of the stab wounds would have been fatal. Police called the victim’s wife, Aniza Essa, who was sleeping inside the flat, for her statement and let her go after recording it.

In most cases, when one spouse is killed, the other is always high on the list of suspects. I believe even though she was released after questioning, Aniza was high on the police’s suspect list. Investigations revealed that her marriage was an unhappy one. Manap had been known to assault his wife, taking money from her to settle his debts. For Manap, it was his second marriage—he had a child from the first marriage. He had also gone to prison for going AWOL while serving national service in the Civil Defence Force. Out of prison, he was apparently even nastier to Aniza who had been holding two jobs in his absence, trying to support their child and Manap’s child from his previous marriage.