Four murders

On 26 August 2005, Took Leng How was sentenced to death for the murder of 8-year-old Huang Na on 10 October 2004. Took was a vegetable packer at a wholesale market and was acquainted with Huang Na's mother, as the woman had once worked there. The girl herself knew Took well and they often played together.

That fateful week, the mother, Huang Shuying, 27, was back in China. She had left Huang Na in the care of her flatmate Li Xiuqin, another Chinese national. Around midday on 10 October 2004, Li allowed Huang Na to go out to make a phone call to her mother, but that was the last she saw of the girl. Apparently, Took met her and they played together in a storeroom where he worked, and where she was killed.

What troubled me was that motive had not been established, without which it seemed unwise to assume that the killing had been pre-planned. Nor was there any evidence that Took had taken steps to plan for the murder, such as procuring a weapon in advance. The judge, Lai Kew Chai, said in his verdict,

56 ....In reaching such a conclusion, I make no finding with regards to whether the accused had in fact sexually assaulted the deceased. Discovering the motive of the killing is not essential to a finding that the accused had indeed caused the death of the deceased and had committed murder.

The defence had raised this point about there being no demonstrable motive, and instead argued that the accused was suffering from schizophrenia. Dr Nagulendran was the expert witness for the defence. However, the judge said,

66 ....The difficulty with Dr Nagulendran’s finding in this respect is that it pre-supposed the killing to be motiveless and unplanned. I am unsure of what the accused’s motives might be, but that does not mean that his acts were motiveless. Bearing in mind that the burden is on the Defence to prove diminished responsibility, if the Defence so wishes to rely on the lack of motive as an indication that the accused was mentally abnormal, it follows that the Defence must positively prove the lack of motive. This it had not done.

Is this reasonable? How can one positively prove the negative?

See the text of the Judgment.

Not only does Singapore law mandate capital punishment upon conviction for murder, with no discretion in sentencing being allowed to the trial judges, what constitutes murder may be broader than the layman thinks. Any act that causes another's death is murder, whether or not motive is established, whether or not pre-planned, though at that very moment, there has to be intent to cause death, or the action should be such that it can reasonably be expected to cause death.

There are, in our Penal Code, 7 exceptions under which an accused can be convicted of "culpable homicide not amounting to murder", instead of simple murder. These generally relate to self-defence, passion or mental impairment. The penalty is 10 years to life, with the possibility of caning added.

The way the law has been worded, the 7 exceptions are subsidiary to the simple offence of murder. This means that the prosecution need only prove that you have killed, and by default you will get the death penalty. It is then up to the defence to prove that one of the 7 exceptions apply in order to escape the default penalty, and even then you may get life in jail, and maybe caning too. Yes, even for self-defence!

Now that I have highlighted this, most readers will realise it is quite different from how we as laymen expect the justice system to work. We mostly think that it is up to the prosecution to prove motive and premeditation in order to obtain a guilty verdict for murder, and that all the defence has to do is to show reasonable doubt.

Apparently, this is not how it is in Singapore.

In this case, the defence argued successfully for diminished responsibility due to mental impairment.

Juminem was an 18 year-old domestic maid, while "another" was a 15 year-old maid. For some reason the court would not name her (because of her age?)  even though the media did. Both came from Indonesia to work. Their ages given here and in the court documents referred to when the crime was committed, in March 2004.

Juminen worked for the victim, Esther Ang, 47, while Siti Aminah worked for her ex-husband. The two maids were quite close -- and were said not to have had any other friends in Singapore save each other -- since their employers, although divorced, remained on good terms and saw each other regularly.

On 2 March 2004, the two maids took turns to suffocate Ang with a pillow and used a wine bottle to hit her abdomen and head several times at her home.

The maids also faked a break-in by taking her money and valuables. Juminem then forged her employer's signature on a cheque for $25,000 payable to Siti Aminah.

Juminem had formed the intention to kill her employer, whom she considered unreasonable and oppressive, about a week before the crime. She enlisted the help of Siti Aminah.

The judge found that Juminem had been suffering from  "reactive depression" as a result of stress from loneliness, financial worry and her employer's demands. The defence had quoted extensively from her diary illustrating the way her mood had changed over the months prior. She was found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.

As for Siti Aminah, the court found that she had been under severe stress, especially from her employer's elderly mother, who had called her names and pushed her. She was also young in age, and of borderline intelligence. The judge said she was easily led along by others. She was sentenced to 10 years' jail.

See Judgment

Severe though those sentences were, everyone heaved a sigh of relief. If either one of them were sentenced to death, there might well be a diplomatic row between Indonesia and Singapore.

As to be expected, there are people who think that the risk of a diplomatic row impinged on the verdict. 3 men and their wives (?) at a coffeeshop where I was having lunch last week had a heated debate about it. They got so animated, before long, 4 others joined in. (In fact, it was that scene that got me interested enough to read up about this case, which I had largely ignored till then.)

Aguilar is another domestic maid, but from the Philippines. She is accused of murdering another Filipino maid, Jane Parangan La Puebla, last week. The body was chopped up, bagged and left near Orchard MRT station and at Macritchie Reservoir Park.

The last time a Filipino maid was found guilty of murder and hanged was in 1995. Flor Contemplacion too had murdered another Filipino maid, Delia Maga, as well as 3-year-old Nicholas Huang, son of her employer. The murders took place in 1991.

Anger swept the Philippines as the news of the execution broke. Leftist and feminist groups, human rights activists and the media denounced Singapore as a barbaric, tyrannical and totalitarian state with no respect for human rights. The Roman Catholic Church called Singapore a state without mercy. 

President Ramos of the Philippines had appealed to the Singapore president for a stay of execution in order to study new evidence, but the Singapore government dismissed the "new evidence" as fabrication.

After the hanging, when the body was flown back to Manila, it was received by Mrs Ramos, the First Lady, which was quite unprecedented. Contemplacion was treated like a heroine, and more than 5,000 jammed into the small town of San Pablo where she had lived to pay their last respects.

Roman Catholic Bishop Teodoro Bacani held a requiem mass in the town's crowded cathedral for her. He told the congregation, "She is a symbol of millions of Filipinos driven by poverty to take their chances abroad...Their lot is pathetic. Their own government neglects them." There was applause from the congregation.

Given such an accusation, there was no way for Manila to appear anything other than tough with Singapore. Bilateral relations chilled for a year after that. Singapore didn't understand the social and political dynamics of an important regional partner. Our political leaders were only familiar with the cold-blooded, tightly-controlled system they had in Singapore.

Now, in the latest case, Singapore is bending over backwards to invite coroner's examiners from the Philippines to perform a joint autopsy on the deceased, to avoid future accusations of a frame up.

The Filipino government has also arranged for the accused Guen Aguilar's husband and family to travel to Singapore so that they can meet with her.

But trouble is already brewing. The judge has refused to allow the attorney hired by the Philippine embassy to meet with his client, instead permitting the police to hold Aguilar for one week for "further investigations", even though she has already been charged, which is to say, the prosecutor already thinks Aguilar murdered La Puebla.

Latest reports say the family too has been refused permission to see her while she is in custody.

On 15 September, 2005, the Straits Times reported that,

Family members of Filipino maid and murder suspect Guen Garlejo Aguilar are likely to arrive in Singapore this week, but she will not be allowed to meet them or her lawyer until police are satisfied that this will not interfere with their investigations.

Further in the same article,

The media in the Philippines has taken issue with the decision to remand Aguilar for one week without access to legal counsel, while Mr Aguilar has appealed to Philippine President Gloria Arroyo to intervene in the case.

Once more, the scene is set for Filipinos to be convinced that Singapore is heartless and our system inherently unjust. The media in that country is bewildered that the accused can't even see her lawyer.

Yet, that is our justice system. The police are allowed first go at you if you're suspected of any crime. They can interrogate you without allowing you to have a lawyer present. They can record what you say, make you sign a statement, and another, and another, without your lawyer advising you. When they record your statements, they do not provide a copy to you or your lawyer. You may next be confronted with these statements only at your trial.

This period where you are "held for investigation" seems intended to give the police an opportunity to get you to incriminate yourself, as you well might under the pressure of interrogation, devoid of assistance.

Coming back to the case, in response to the mounting concern about lack of access to Aguilar, the Singapore government had to issue a statement, as reported in the same Straits Times article. 

In a statement released yesterday, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) insisted Aguilar is being treated fairly and 'no differently from any suspect or accused person who has been charged with a similar offence'.

The MHA said: 'The basic rights and needs of an accused person in custody are always strictly observed and met.

'Any accused person under police custody is accorded proper facilities and treated humanely, including the provisions for personal hygiene, food, water and access to medical treatment if needed.'

But it stressed that the investigations must not be compromised.

How does the presence of a lawyer and family visits "compromise" any investigation unless insistence on human rights and basic norms of justice are themselves seen as a hindrance to police process?

McCrea is accused of murdering his driver, Kho Nai Guan, 46, and the driver's girlfriend, Lan Ya Ming, 29, on 2 Jan 2002 at his apartment. He managed to flee to Australia before the police could issue a warrant of arrest for him, as the bodies (and the crime) were not discovered till five days later. McCrea, a British citizen, has since been fighting extradition on the grounds that the mandatory penalty for murder in Singapore is death, and Australian law does not allow extradition of any suspect to a country where he may face capital punishment. 

To get around this problem, the Singapore government has given an undertaking to Australia that even if he is convicted of murder, he will not be executed. Since by law, the judge has no choice in the matter except to impose the death penalty, this undertaking can only be realised through Presidential clemency. 

Even so, it begs the question of whether there is equal justice in Singapore. Will some suspects, by their special circumstances, particularly the involvement of foreign countries face a different penalty for the same crime?

* * * * *

The common denominator seems to be that Singapore is out of step with expected norms prevailing in many other countries. To them, and to many Singaporeans, our laws and processes appear barbaric and unjustifiably loaded against the accused.

Hence, each time a foreign government takes an interest in a case, we have to make ad hoc adjustments in order to avoid a crisis in relations. In the example of McCrea, we've had to give up the death penalty in order to get him extradited at all.

But every time we make ad hoc adjustments, we raise the question of equal justice. We raise the suspicion that the verdict might have been less grounded on facts than on diplomatic imperatives, which, as you can imagine, does wonders (sarcasm intended) for the dictum that justice should not only be done, but seen to be done.

What purpose does capital punishment serve? It doesn't even have a deterrent effect as the experience of other countries have shown. And certainly, it has no rehabilitative effect either. You're dead, man. It's just judicial revenge, stemming from a primitive view of what a justice should be.

How do we convince anyone that denying an accused person access to a lawyer is good for justice? To me, this practice seems to come from a time when the chief aim was to get confessions, by whatever means necessary.

What is holding us back from bringing our justice system up to date? Pride. Damn pride. An unwillingness by our government to admit that their thinking is archaic, that they are more inclined to making their prosecutors' jobs easy than upholding human rights. An insistence that they always know best. An insistence that while everybody else's norms may be fine for everybody else, a different sun shines on Singapore.

© Yawning Bread 

Footnotes

1. See also the article Poster boys of law and order which touches on Shanmugam Murugesu, who was hanged for trafficking in drugs.
2. See also the article  Anis Abdullah redux about how even obviously obsolete laws can't easily be changed

Addenda

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