The Best I Could (29 page)

Everybody congratulated Leo but he wasn’t sure what had just happened. Neither was the prosecutor sure of what had just transpired. Martin and I looked at each other, both of us equally confused. Finally, when everybody had left, Martin and I walked over to the
bomoh
and I asked him, “What did you do?”

“Well, this judge is a good man. It took me a little longer to get through to him but in the end, everything is alright.”

I really didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but whatever it was, there was an acquittal for Martin who went back to work at the library. Even till today, Leo feels it was an unusual case. That was one of my first experiences with black magic, or whatever magic you can call it, being used in court.

Soon after, I was called to the Bar and was practising on my own in Winchester House. A man called Talib, an employee at Shook Lin & Bok where I did my pupilage, brought a drug trafficking case to me and asked if I could help. I agreed. Before the trial started, Talib came to see me and asked: “Can you do us a favour and let us know who is the most important prosecution witness? When he’s giving his evidence, could you just turn around to signal to us that he’s the one?”

Of course I was curious and said: “Why do you need me to do that?”

“Please, just do me a favour. Trust me. Just do it,” he pleaded.

I agreed as it made my client and his family happy, but I think Talib felt I might be upset with him. He proceeded to explain that the family had a
bomoh
sitting there with them who they believed would help them win the case. “Whatever,” I replied.

The most important witness for the prosecution was the arresting officer who had seen the accused throw away the drugs when he was being chased. As he came forward to give evidence, I turned around and signalled to the family. I remember cross-examining him for nearly two hours and managed to create doubt in the judge’s mind as to whether he actually saw the accused throwing the drugs away. When it came to my submission, I again submitted that the evidence of the arresting officer was not reliable because he had given so many versions under cross-examination. The judge agreed and acquitted the accused. I thought I had done an excellent job in cross-examining this witness and tearing him to pieces. But when I walked out, everybody was congratulating the
bomoh
. They all believed that the witness had broken down and given inconsistent versions only because of the man’s magical powers. My cross-examination had nothing to do with it!

I wasn’t very sure who did what, but there are many other instances of lawyers being approached by the families of the accused to do unusual things. For instance, they would ask the lawyer to pass a sweet to the accused to eat or they would ask the lawyer to give the accused a piece of thread to hold. We try to oblige them most of the time and more often than not, it appears to work, strange as it may seem. So much so that I really don’t know whether it’s my skill as a lawyer or the skill of the
bomoh
behind the acquittals I have obtained for some of my clients. For this reason, I will not come to any sort of conclusion about black magic. I have seen black magic working in my lifetime during my university days and while living in Kampung Wak Hassan. I will not say anything damning about black magic.

The last case that I want to include in this book is that of the Public Prosecutor vs Heng Boon Chai. It first hit the headlines in September 2007.
The Straits Times
reported that Heng Boon Chai was charged with the murder of his uncle, his father’s brother. It was a violent murder that caught the public’s attention because of the close relationship between the two men.

A few days later, while I was in my office, Sandra, my secretary, put a call through from a woman enquiring whether we were prepared to meet with her parents. She was the sister of the accused. She and her parents wanted to discuss the matter in the press report. One of the first things they said to me when they came to my office was that they had difficulty tracing me. They thought that I was still with Harry Elias Partnership. After some enquiries, they managed to track me down at KhattarWong. My nephew, Sunil, who assists me in my cases, was with me as usual when they eventually came to the office that day.

Heng’s parents are illiterate and poor, and their story is a sad one. Their eldest son suffered from schizophrenia and committed suicide. Their younger son, the accused Heng, saw his brother jump from the flat and that triggered something in him. His parents said there was a drastic change in his character after that which became worse when his grandfather passed away shortly after. He had been very close to his grandfather, spending hours playing Chinese checkers with him. His parents had no idea why he killed his uncle. They said Heng had been mumbling to himself in the past few months. Heng had told them that he heard his grandfather’s voice talking to him and asking him to do things. Heng also said that he could feel the weight of someone sitting on him when he was asleep. His parents tried to pacify him as much as they could. They also brought him to see a Chinese medium who gave them powders to mix in his drinks as well as a talisman for him to wear. But nothing helped and he killed his uncle. He was arrested, charged and taken for psychiatric evaluation which confirmed that he was a paranoid schizophrenic. As he was diagnosed with a mental disease, the prosecution reduced the charge from murder to one under Section 304a of the Penal Code, which is culpable homicide.

His parents told me they had no money to pay the legal fees. I assured them that as it was a capital case, the State would appoint two lawyers, a senior and a junior, to defend their son and that they didn’t have to worry. Both of them started to cry in the meeting room. They did not want to lose their remaining son to the gallows and pleaded with me not to abandon them just because they were poor. At the time of our meeting, the charge had not yet been reduced. Sunil and I looked at each other. My nephew is a very compassionate young man and when I looked at his face, I knew he was hoping I would do the case pro bono. I could read his mind. After all, he is my nephew.

Heng’s father reached into his pocket and took out a few $10 notes and a couple of $50 notes, totalling $200, and said, “This is all we’ve got. Please take this and help us.”

I didn’t want to take his money and told him, “Please keep your money. You need it more than I do. It’s okay.”

He insisted. “No, please. I will feel very happy if you take this money.” He pressed the money into my hand. We opened a file with the $200 and worked on the case.

It was not difficult to get the charge reduced because of his mental condition. Heng appeared before Justice Woo Bih Li, who is very fair and reasonable and always prepared to listen. We made our mitigation plea based on the fact that Heng was being treated for his disorder and was on his way to recovery. We felt that he should get only four to six years. The DPP, however, said it should be nothing less than 10 years. In fact, he said he would prefer a life sentence. But Justice Woo was not happy with the psychiatric report as it did not state how long it would take for Heng to be cured. He asked for a further report as he wanted to assess Heng’s latest psychiatric condition.

Heng seemed to suffer from many delusions, one of which was that he was the head of a gang of death comprising 30,000 to 40,000 members. The uncle he killed was said to belong to another gang which was trying to hurt Heng’s gang and get rid of its leader. Heng also believed his uncle possessed a gun which he wanted to get hold of to commit a robbery. He said he needed money to marry a girl who was supposed to have lived with him. In another delusion, Heng said that he had a girlfriend who had aborted their baby and went off to live in Malaysia. However, she had called him to say that she didn’t go through with the abortion and his child was alive. Heng was also convinced that his uncle was responsible for the death of his elder brother and his grandfather. He heard the voice of his grandfather telling him to kill his uncle. His was a classic case of paranoid schizophrenia.

Since the judge had asked for a further report, the psychiatrist treating Heng was produced in court. Dr Tan testified that it takes about a year for doctors to assess the optimum dosage of medication, and that Heng had been improving. She added that the next five years were crucial because that was when some 80 per cent of patients might go into a relapse. She stated that Changi Prison, where Heng was being kept, had better facilities for his needs and his parents would not have to monitor him. I asked Dr Tan if Heng had shown a marked improvement since he started treatment in October 2007. She replied that he had made a very great improvement. She also said that she did not see any reason why he should not continue to improve. Satisfied with her answers, I sat down and said “no further questions”. The judge looked at me with a smile.

On hearing Dr Tan’s testimony, the DPP stood up and said: “We are not asking for a life sentence, Your Honour. In this particular case, a deterrent sentence is not the objective because you never use mental illness as the basis for deterrence.”

I responded. “Even retribution in this particular case is limited because of his mental illness. The two aspects of punishment the court has to take are rehabilitation and protection to society. There is a possibility that this mental illness may have a relapse in five years’ time. We have to take it seriously because protection to society is very important. Not only is it protection to society, it is also protection for the accused because it is possible that he may commit suicide.”

I told the judge that my earlier assessment where I said the sentence should be four to six years was incorrect and that it should be higher than six years. Once again, Justice Woo smiled at me.

When I was reading the authorities and the psychiatrist’s report which had been given the night before hearing the case, I predicted that Heng should be sentenced to eight years in prison. In fact, I scribbled a calculation of how much time he had been remanded and noted that he should be there for another 54 months if he was given eight years. That was just my expectation and I did not dwell on it any further. So when the judge sentenced him to eight years and backdated it to September 5, 2007, I was rather pleased. I turned to Sunil and showed him what I had hastily scribbled the night before. Then I showed it to the DPP and he remarked, “Not bad, you know, Subhas. You should be a judge!” We all laughed.

As he was escorted out of the courtroom, Heng shook our hands but showed no emotion. His family was very happy. His parents hugged Sunil and I and gave each of us a
hong bao
to show their gratitude. As we left in Sunil’s car, I opened the red packets. In each packet was $100. I remarked to Sunil: “Look, as far as they are concerned, there is no such thing as lead counsel and assisting counsel. To them, the both of us are equally important and that should be the way.” Many people do not understand that it is the assistant who carries the workload. He has the unenviable task of doing all the work including preparing the submission. The lead counsel merely presents the submission in court, for which he gets all the credit, but actually in many instances, most of the credit must go to the assistant and the team that worked together.

I think when Heng’s parents gave us each $100, consciously or subconsciously they realised that Sunil had played an equally important part in their son’s case, and I was quite happy that they recognised Sunil’s efforts. I gave my share to Sunil and told him he deserved it. To me, it was the start of a good weekend. We managed to get what we wanted all because we had a judge who knew exactly what he should do and we had a prosecution team of Peter Koi and Winodan Vinesh who knew what to ask for and what their limitations were. They did not push for something they knew they would never get. If they had asked for life imprisonment, they would have been asking for trouble because this would have irritated the judge. So, they amended their request to 10 years. But I think eight years was a fair sentence.

Defending J B Jeyaretnam (JBJ) brought me into contact with many Queen’s Counsel. One of them was John Mortimer, the well-known playwright and author, whom I assisted in JBJ’s first criminal case in 1982. JBJ was charged with depriving his creditors of the assets of the Workers’ Party. It was a ridiculous charge and the case came up before Senior District Judge Michael Khoo, who was very well respected by the Bar for his righteousness and fairness. Leading the prosecution was Senior State Counsel Glenn Knight. Assisting him was Cambridge-educated John Koh, a very capable deputy public prosecutor.