It was a big, big story back home in Germany. The very idea that one of their citizens - and a young woman at that - would be hanged for a drug offence was totally abhorrent to everyone in her country, the rest of Europe and many parts of the world where the death penalty had also been abolished long ago. It was a horrifying thought to millions of people.
In August 1994, Dutchman Johannes van Damme became the first European to hang in Singapore for drug offences, despite pleas for clemency from the Dutch government led by the Queen, the Pope, and human rights organisations around the world. Van Damme was caught in 1991 at Changi airport with 4.5 kilograms of heroin hidden in his suitcase. His execution left a lingering animosity between the two countries that persisted for years, damaging what had always been a harmonious relationship. So the seemingly inevitable execution of a Westerner - let alone a woman - looked like another huge international crisis in the making. But in Singapore where a mandatory death penalty exists for trafficking more than 15 grams of heroin, she would have been just another statistic among the many hundreds of men and women hanged for similar offences. Within hours of being told of her arrest and the awful consequences that might befall her, diplomats and lawyers in Singapore and Germany swung into action working round the clock under the very eye of the Chancellor Gerhard Schroder himself. It was feared that the outcome of the trial might affect the result of the next general election if they failed to stop Bohl being hanged. The German Embassy hired one of Singapore's top criminal defence lawyers, Subhas Anandan, to take up Bohl's case and, indirectly, that of the Federal Republic as well. Much was at stake.
Everyone in Europe and top officials in the Singapore government remembered the outcry, followed by threats of economic reprisals against Singapore, when van Damme was hanged. Both sides feared an even bigger and devastating uproar in Germany which could do serious damage to the close business relationship between the two countries.
Germany was a major investor in Singapore and no one wanted an economic fall-out of a potentially catastrophic dimension if this young woman were to be sentenced to death and hanged. The Bundestag was in uproar and on the verge of suffering a mass apoplexy. Everyone kept their fingers crossed in Germany for a good outcome of the case - or, as they do there, gripped their thumbs for luck. But they all knew it would take more than luck and, if Schroder did not move quickly and with a firm hand to save his precious citizen, it could cost him dearly at the next election. Singapore knew it was in danger, too, from a devastating diplomatic and economic riff with the European giant. Apart from that, its mandatory policy of hanging convicted drug dealers was brought into the international spotlight once again.
It was clear from the evidence - and my later investigations - that Bohl ran a major drug ring that supplied well-heeled patrons of bars and glitzy nightclubs and restaurants along the Singapore River at Boat Quay and Clarke Quay and at private parties at her home. This was her luxury flat in Goodwood Park, a high end part of town, plus another just around the corner at Balmoral Apartments - perhaps used as a bolt-hole, which she later claimed was a place to study in not to escape to. But that was where narcotics police found large stashes of drugs and 'cooking' utensils to prepare them for consumption. Documents recording her first two remand appearances in the Sub-Ordinate Court alleged that Bohl and one of the men known to her only as 'Ben were using the Balmoral apartment to store her drug supplies. 'Ben' was Bohl's boyfriend and it was not disputed that he stayed with her in the Balmoral apartment, according to the court documents. Bohl was also named in the rental agreement which she had signed as the tenant. Her activities had come to the notice of the Central Narcotics Bureau in early January 2002 following the so-called Orchard Towers murder investigation and she, her accomplices and customers were put under 24 hour surveillance.
On 2 January 2002 after a wild drugs and booze New Year's Eve party two people died in a fight over a stash of missing drugs. This was the case of Mike McCrea, a millionaire financial adviser and money launderer who went on the run with his young Chinese Singaporean girlfriend when two bodies were found stuffed in a car in a car park in at the high rise shopping and night club mall known which boasts
of having four floors of whores. Investigations into the murders ultimately led police and CNB agents to the activities of Bohl and her friendship with McCrea. McCrea, also in the business as a seller, had by this time fled to Britain and then to Australia. As soon as they began investigating the crimes the police and Central Narcotics Bureau realised they were on to something bigger than they ever imagined. Despite the furore created by the two murders just around the corner from her home, Bohl was totally oblivious to the fact that police had her under surveillance. A few weeks later, she was introduced to a good-looking young man who said his name was 'Ben'.
He was a 33 year-old Malay Singaporean and told her he had good connections with suppliers just across the border in Johor Bahru. He wanted to get in on some bigger action. Bohl was convinced he would be a good addition to her team. She also took a shine to him, mesmerised by his good looks and charm. They soon became lovers and lived together in one of her flats, the one at Balmoral Apartments - just around the corner from her other pad at Goodwood Service Apartments where she hosted her drug parties. Her name was on both leases and she had the keys. From my investigations, I discovered that 'Ben was in reality an undercover agent, an officer of the Central Narcotics Bureau - with orders to kill. His brief was to get enough evidence against her to ensure she would one day have an appointment with Darshan Singh on the gallows. 'Ben's' real name - if it was his real name - was revealed when he appeared in the dock with Bohl in Singapore's lower court. He was identified as Hamdan bin Mohammed. He had been given orders to infiltrate the drug ring, seduce Bohl and become her lover. While making love to her, he was collecting vital evidence about her drug sources and customers. It was the kind of pillow talk that could send her - and perhaps many others - to certain death.
It was a midweek party, this time a Tuesday night-Wednesday morning, another wild drug party hosted by Bohl when it all came to a crashing, screaming end, as dozens of armed CNB agents burst into her flat. It had been a good party for her regular customers; a lovely crowd of beautiful people and, as usual, the ever-present 'Ben' hovering in the background. At a pre-arranged time he sent a signal on a mobile phone. Officers of the CNB who had been waiting out of sight in unmarked vans and cars in nearby streets suddenly swooped. He was also held in the melee and appeared in court the next day when they were all formally charged. It was good cover - they don't like their undercover men to be exposed for what they are. The arrest of Bohl made headlines across Germany and all over Europe. NCB officers had seized 687 grams of marijuana and other drugs in her apartment and newspaper headlines announced that this German girl faced the death penalty. A few days later things seemed to have got worse. Bohl was back in court to face additional charges - trafficking, drug use, possessing ketamine and other drugs and utensils for their use. Without the capital offence, the maximum sentence for possessing the ketamine alone was a S$20,000 fine or 10 years behind bars or both. Then a funny thing happened on the way to the High Court where Bohl's trial was about to begin. Further laboratory test results produced by the prosecutor, suddenly showed that the cannabis found in her possession weighed only 281 grams! A difference of 301 grams - and far less still than 500 grams which attracts a mandatory death penalty. All the other charges against her were also suddenly and mysteriously dropped or, at least, were never mentioned again. Just as mysteriously, 'Ben' also vanished from the scene. During initial investigations to build the case against her, Bohl and 'Ben were taken to her second flat just around the corner which served also as a store room for her drugs. 'Anyone simply found in possession of keys to anything containing illicit drugs or the keys to any premise where such drugs are found is presumed to have been in possession of those drugs', a legal expert told me.
The real story of how Bohl was caught - and her neck saved - was partly reve
aled to me by a former member of the Central Narcotics Bureau. Now retired and with the understanding that I would never reveal his name, he told me that Bohl and McCrea had known each other long before that fatal New Year's Eve party in January 2002. But it was the double murder that led to the sting and her arrest using 'Ben' as an undercover agent or rather an under-the-bedcover seducer! 'It's a dirty job but this is a dirty business', he told me. 'We have to infiltrate the drug rings in this way. Otherwise they are closed to us. It's the only way we can get to know them and their activities and bring them to justice. The thing I always hated was that we had orders to encourage some mules to commit bigger crimes with more drugs than they planned to traffic. This always meant sending them to the gallows - and many were'. When Bohl eventually appeared in court to face trial, she was all alone and full of smiles. She had agreed to plead guilty to lesser charges which carried a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail and a $20,000 fine and, more importantly, to give evidence for the prosecution. But she received a sentence of only five years, a slap on the wrist by comparison to what happened to the likes of Nguyen and many others. The damning evidence that 'Ben' had gathered from his 'pillow talk' and observations was never produced. His dangerous undercover work was all in vain, but no doubt his work under the sheets was adequate enough satisfaction for him. Even more strangely, court records now show that only one more of the four named in original court records ended up being prosecuted: Mahdi Ibrahim Bamadhaj. He was jailed for 20 years and given 22 lashes of the rattan cane. The chief prosecution witness in his trial was none other than Julia Bohl. Her evidence cited him as the kingpin while she was under his influence all the time!
While I was delving into court records concerning the case against Bamadhaj and his appeal, I came across this extraordinary titbit of information. After detailing the circumstances of Bamadhaj's arrest with Bohl and 'Ben, the High Court document explained: 'Ben is currently on the run. He was last seen by the CNB on the afternoon of 13 March 2002 at the car park at the York Hotel, after telling his friends present at the Goodwood Park service apartments that he felt he was being trailed by the CNB'. Unless there had been a typing error, the fact that this happened only hours after first appearing in the dock with Bohl and the other accomplices and was then 'seen' by CNB officers at Goodwood Park that afternoon rang a very loud bell in my head! A top flight drug trafficker, possibly facing death on the gallows, then goes 'on the run'? How could it be possible he would be allowed to get away only hours after he had appeared in the dock with Bohl - who was being held in custody along with Bamadhaj and, presumably, Sunaiza Hamsah? Then tell his friends that he 'felt he was being trailed' by the CNB while actually being watched by the CNB? It did not make any kind of sense to me. And it was my further investigations that confirmed my suspicions that 'Ben' in reality was a police officer and had been working undercover all the time. But it should not surprise anyone, my retired CNB officer informant told me. Such people doing such dangerous work have to be protected at all times. I also tried to discover what happened to Sunaiza Hamsah, the other young woman named in the original charge. There was no trace of her at all. Lawnet.com has nothing on her 'case either. Perhaps she, too, was an undercover agent or informant? Or maybe, because of the intervention by the German government to save Bohl, they let her fade into obscurity so Singapore could not be accused of 'favouritism' and have her reveal more scandal at her trial than Singapore could deal with. Bohl was released in July 2005 having served only three years - just five months before Australian citizen Van Tuong Nguyen was hanged - and went to live in Amsterdam where certain kinds of drugs are a way of life.
During my investigations into the Bohl case, I uncovered yet another carefully-guarded secret between the two countries. The Federal Government promised that two German banks, the State Bank of Hessen and the State Bank of Bavaria would invest heavily in Singapore on condition that a 'diplomatic solution' would be found to save her from the gallows. It was an offer Singapore could not or rather dare not refuse! After all, business is business. Unfortunately, I was never able to discover if these huge investments actually materialised. Such sensitive banking information is impossible to find without breaking the law in Singapore.
When Nguyen was about to be hanged shortly after Bohl returned home, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said in a statement that he was sorry for Nguyen's mother that the execution had to go ahead. He pointed out that this was because the amount of drugs he was caught trafficking to Australia via Changi airport would have destroyed thousands of lives. What a contrast to the warm, friendly treatment Bohl received. Exactly how she managed to escape the noose wasn't known when the campaign to save the Australian citizen failed. Then, of course, it was too late. No one was able to point out to Lee that Nguyen was merely using Changi as a hub! The Australians could quite easily have given him a long, punishing prison sentence, instead of hanging him, as is the norm in the majority of countries. If Nguyen was helping to destroy lives in Australia as Lee stated and was so concerned about, then Bohl was helping destroy lives perhaps on a much bigger scale in his own backyard, Singapore. It is not that Bohl should have hanged, but that Nguyen's life should have been spared, too!
'Julia has shown good behaviour in prison so she was granted a remission of one third of her five-year sentence', prison spokeswoman Lim Soo Eng said of her kindly on her release. Bohl turned 26 while in jail and was immediately deported. She was picked up by her loving parents and consular officials outside the jail and immediately whisked back to the safety of Europe. Bohl was an ideal inmate, according to a prison officer. While serving her sentence, she was allowed to pursue a London School of Economics distance lear ning course in economics and social science. Her privileged life as a teenager had begun in Singapore where her wealthy parents used to live and where she completed studies at the local German School and continued in prison! The outcome of her trial astounded many human rights observers in Singapore. And when I became involved in the Nguyen Van Tuong case, I searched the Bohl court files. They prompted a timely interview with her lawyer, Subhas Anandan, for the newspaper The Australian with one of their staff reporters, Mike McKenna, who flew to Singapore to help cover the events leading up to the execution. Anandan, with a reputation as a most skilful criminal defence lawyer, was querulous over the Australian government's 'tardiness' in coming forward to save their citizen in the same way the German government did for Bohl. He dared not go into details at that time, but said only that the last minute flurry of activity by the Howard government was akin to 'visiting a dead person in hospital'. Although they served roughly the same time behind bars, Julia was allowed to start her life all over again. Did race play a part in the outcome? Or didn't Howard care enough to fight for Nguyen like the Germans did for their precious citizen?
The Bohl case and many others I have looked into reveal a little- known secret: that Singapore has an Achilles heel when it comes to whom they hang and whom they don't. 'If the economy comes under threat from reprisals it will err on the right to life - and the right to trade - and buckle under from this kind of pressure', another Singapore lawyer told me. Asad Latif, a former senior reporter with The Straits Times, and a visiting research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, would deny this of course. He has to toe the People's Action Party ethos. In an articled published in The Australian explaining why Nguyen should be hanged, he wrote: 'It is unfortunate Nguyen Van Tuong has to die, but the law against drug trafficking must be implemented uniformly No one has the right to expect, let alone demand, that Singapore bend its laws to suit the laws of another country. Sovereignty, then, is a key issue in this case'.
11
The Odd Couple
One of the most bizarre stories I uncovered for this book concerned British financial adviser, Mike McCrea, a reputed millionaire, and German student Julia Bohl who could, in normal circumstances in Singapore, have ended up on the gallows - possibly together. The crimes they committed were not enti
rely unconnected and had this fateful chain of coincidences played out to its spooky end, Darshan Singh might well have hanged this 'odd couple' side-by-side at the customary time: Friday at dawn. As it turned out, unlike hundreds of other criminals caught in Singapore dragnets and sting operations facing the mandatory death penalty, these lucky souls were spared the noose. Their stories began in early 2001. Bohl, aged 23, and McCrea, 44, were close neighbours in a high end part of Singapore - he in Balmoral Park and she just around the corner in Goodwood Park where many foreign diplomats also reside. They first got to know each other through their mutual interest in the high life - and drugs - at a bar named Pinkk at Boat Quay, now under new management and completely above board. Both were regular drug users who loved wild parties. And both were dealers who had discovered a lucrative sideline to boost their already impressive incomes. Bohl grew up never having to work for her basic needs. She had wealthy parents back home in Germany and her allowance from them alone was more than many medium level executives earned in Singapore. But Bohl wanted more out of life, the excitement of wild parties with thumping music that went on all night energised by the kind of drugs she sold and consumed. She needed much more than her parents gave her to satisfy
Once a Jolly Hangman Page 10
