A few days later, I had to go to the Condemned Prison to visit another client. When I was there, I asked the officer whether Anthony Ler was smiling when he was walking to the gallows. The officer did not reply. He just smiled at me.
TWENTY
TAN CHOR JIN
The One-Eyed Dragon
When you hear the words ‘Las Vegas’, your first thoughts would normally be of casinos, gambling, pretty girls and the United States. But Las Vegas in Singapore means something else; it refers to the well-known Las Vegas Nightclub KTV. I used to go there with my clients, and sometimes with my friends, to have a drink and some fun singing in our own private room so that no one will find out what fools we are all making of ourselves. Every time I’m there, the owner, Lim Hock Soon, who was fondly referred to as Lim Piggy because he was fat, would greet me with something like, “Hello lawyer, how are you?” I would return the greeting with, “Hello, how are you? How’s your business?” He would reply it was good and would then ask me about my business. I would say, “Not too bad,” and walk into the room to sing. Sometimes my friends and I would just sit in the hall to listen to a girl sing and we’d watch other people make fools of themselves.
One day I read in the papers that Lim Piggy had been shot dead by the notorious Tan Chor Jin aka One-eyed Dragon. I knew for a fact that Tan was one of the top hitmen for a very powerful gang in Singapore called Ang Soon Tong. Only able to see with one eye, he was known for his brutality and ruthlessness in his dealings with his enemies. The press reported that Lim was shot dead by One-eyed Dragon on the morning of February 15, 2006. Six shots had been fired into him and it was done at his home in front of his wife and maid. Singapore was rocked by this news because it is very rare to have cases of gun assassinations on the island. The punishment for possession of guns is very severe and the punishment for discharging a firearm is death.
One-eyed Dragon escaped to Malaysia but through the close cooperation of the Singapore and Malaysian police forces, he was apprehended in a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur. From what I gathered, the lead was given to the police in KL by Lim’s own gang members who were also looking for One-eyed Dragon and had tipped off the police. One-eyed Dragon was extradited to Singapore and promptly charged with Lim’s murder. His family engaged a lawyer to represent him in his defence. One-eyed Dragon was produced in Court 26 and charged with murder. He was held without bail because for a capital case like murder, no bail was allowed.
The prosecution subsequently found it easier to amend the murder charge to one of discharging a firearm. Under the Firearms Act, this also carries a sentence of death. It was easier to prove a case against One-eyed Dragon under the amended charge because in a murder charge, you have to prove an intention to kill among other things that you don’t have to prove under the Firearms Act. In the latter charge, the prosecution only needed to show that One-eyed Dragon had discharged his firearm and the discharge had caused the death of a person.
One-eyed Dragon craved cigarettes. Each time he was charged and brought to court, he would make a request to the magistrate or judge for cigarettes. But his request was always turned down because in Singapore, prisoners are not allowed to have cigarettes. One-eyed Dragon suffered severe withdrawal symptoms and dismissed his lawyer because he said the lawyer didn’t seem to be able to do anything for him—he couldn’t get the cigarettes he wanted and he also wasn’t able to prevent him from being held in the psychiatric ward at Changi Prison. One-eyed Dragon felt that he should be held in Queenstown Remand Prison.
His trial started in the High Court before Justice Tay Yong Kwang. When the judge asked him whether he wanted an assigned counsel, saying if he wanted one, he would be given one—in fact two, a senior lawyer and an assistant—he refused. He said that he would represent himself and that he was capable of defending himself. The trial went on for a few weeks and One-eyed Dragon, from what I read from the Notes of Evidence, did his best to cross-examine witnesses of the prosecution as well as the expert witnesses. He was allowed to call a psychiatrist to show that he was intoxicated and, as such, was not able to formulate any intention to kill or to shoot Lim. However, according to One-eyed Dragon, the psychiatrist played him out at the trial by giving evidence that he did not expect. One-eyed Dragon could have misunderstood him. The psychiatrist was well known and what he told One-eyed Dragon was that in a charge of murder, intoxication and other factors could help reduce it to one of culpable homicide, but these factors no longer counted when his charge was amended to one under the Firearms Act. One-eyed Dragon found it very difficult to accept that and called the psychiatrist all sorts of names. The poor psychiatrist may have regretted coming to court as his witness.
When the time came for the final submission, One-eyed Dragon told Justice Tay that he needed a lawyer. He said he was not capable of summing up as he didn’t know how to. This request was turned down by the trial judge, which I thought was wrong and unfair. Just because One-eyed Dragon had decided that he didn’t want a lawyer at the beginning of the trial did not mean that he should be denied one later. As expected, One-eyed Dragon was sentenced to death by the trial judge.
When One-eyed Dragon was taken to the condemned cell and asked to file his Notice of Appeal and Petition of Appeal, he realised again that he needed a lawyer. His wife and one of his gang members approached me and asked me to be his defence counsel. They told me that they did not have the money but would try to pay my fee somehow. I proposed that they request the government to assign me to the case so that they need not pay my fees. Since One-eyed Dragon had told his wife that he wanted only me to act for him in his appeal, I suggested he make this request to the registrar of the Supreme Court. He did and later that day I received a call from the registrar asking me if I would take on the case. I said I would and the case was assigned to me. I asked for my nephew, Sunil, to be the assisting counsel.
Usually, the assisting counsel should come from a different firm. This was a way of having senior counsels train a wider pool of young lawyers to handle criminal cases. However, in this case, the Registrar made an exception and allowed Sunil, who was from the same firm, to assist me. I asked for him to be appointed as it was a complicated case and I wanted to be able to choose who should assist me.
So I went with Sunil to see One-eyed Dragon in the condemned cell at Changi Prison. Before seeing him, we met with another client, Leong Siew Chor, the accused in the Kallang River body parts case, for a chat. He told me that he had spoken with One-eyed Dragon and found him an amusing person.
When Sunil and I met One-eyed Dragon, we were not able to shake his hand as we were separated from him by a security glass panel, but we exchanged nods by way of greeting. He thanked me for accepting his case and told me that he couldn’t speak English very well but could speak a little Malay. I assured him that it was not a problem as Sunil could speak fluent Mandarin having taken the language in school. He was very surprised and glad he could express himself fully to Sunil. They started to talk and I intervened at times as I could understand a smattering of Mandarin.
The meeting was more to introduce ourselves and to assure him that we would be doing the best we could for him. At that stage, we did not have the Grounds of Decision and the Notes of Evidence. When we had all the documents ready and had gone through them, we would return to visit him. We asked him why he had shot Lim and he gave us his account of the incident. He also told us about how unfair he thought the system was and how the judge had not been fair to him. He felt that from the moment he was caught, he was not going to get a fair trial. I told him through Sunil that this was not true as we really do give everyone a fair trial under our system. It may appear to some as being unfair but the fact is that trials in Singapore follow the letter of the law.
When the Notes of Evidence and the Grounds of Decision were made available to us, we found that the evidence against One-eyed Dragon was overwhelming as the eyewitnesses were quite sure of what they had seen. From what we gathered from the Notes of Evidence,
the prosecution witnesses, including the driver who had taken One-eyed Dragon to Lim’s flat, were all reliable witnesses. However, we were disturbed by the fact that One-eyed Dragon had been denied a lawyer to help him with his final submission. We thought it was unconstitutional and as far as we were concerned, he had not been given a fair trial as his request for a counsel was not acceded to by the judge. We put as our first grounds of appeal: denial of a fair trial.
Another grounds of appeal we put forward concerned the judge’s interpretation of the evidence given by the maid. Justice Tay had refused to visit the scene of the crime to verify One-eyed Dragon’s statement but had chosen instead to rely on photographs and the maid’s evidence. According to One-eyed Dragon, the maid was in the bedroom and could not see what was going on. The photographs could not show that the maid was lying. But the judge had refused his request to visit the crime scene, which we thought was a rather poor decision on his part. He should have gone to the scene to confirm the maid’s evidence.
Why couldn’t he when other judges have done so, like Justice V K Rajah, in the case of Constance Chee. According to Justice Rajah, going to the scene had helped him visualise what could really have happened. After observing the scene of the offence, he had asked the prosecution to create a mock HDB balcony so that the witnesses could enact the incident clearly. In another trial, Justice Woo Bih Li had gone to the crime scene to try and ascertain the truth. There have been occasions when judges felt it necessary to inspect the murder scene. It costs them nothing but One-eyed Dragon’s judge decided not to which we thought was unfair.
Still, we knew deep inside that all these facts were not going to hold any weight. The only strong argument that we had was the fact that One-eyed Dragon had not been given a fair trial when he was denied counsel. I started the argument in the Court of Appeal before Justices of Appeal Andrew Pang, V K Rajah and Tan Lee Meng. It was a very good hearing. Although they complimented me on my arguments, they were not prepared to accept the fact that One-eyed Dragon had been denied a fair trial. In fact, they asked: “What could a counsel do if he was given counsel at that stage?” I argued that a counsel could have helped him sum up his case and given him pointers. That would have helped him in his closing submission which could have affected the verdict. Both Justices Pang and Rajah said: “Okay, you’re the counsel now. Tell us what you could have said to help him in the lower court.”
I replied: “If you ask me now, to be honest, I will not be able to, but the fact is that some other lawyer could have been able to put forward some arguments that may have helped him.”
Justice Andrew Pang said: “Well, Mr Anandan, you are one of the most capable lawyers of the Criminal Bar and if you say that there is nothing much that can be said, then I think that’s the end of the matter.” He thanked me for being candid.
I lost the appeal and I think the Court of Appeal took the practical way out. They looked at the case and decided that there was so much evidence against One-eyed Dragon that it didn’t matter. I think they thought it would be a waste of time to have a new trial because the evidence was not going to change much and there was enough to find One-eyed Dragon guilty. I suppose they were entitled to do that, but to me a re-trial would have been fair.
Before you give the supreme punishment to an accused person, namely the death sentence, I think you should give him every opportunity to have a different verdict. We live in a society where our judicial system is such that every man—no matter what his offence is, even if it is the most heinous offence under the law—should be given every opportunity possible to defend himself before being convicted and punished under the law. Only then can we say with a clear conscience when a man is hanged, that everything possible has been done for him and the law must take its course.
TWENTY-ONE
CHUA TIONG TIONG
Ah Long San
I first met Ah Long San in 1976 when we both were inmates at Queenstown Remand Prison. He was detained for various criminal activities. He was just an ordinary prisoner—that is, he was not considered a special prisoner by the other inmates as I was. In November that year, I was released from remand and went back to practise law. A few years later, I assisted my future mother-in-law in the sale of her land in Jalan Tua Kong, off Upper East Coast Road, to a group of my friends who were developing the land to build units of terrace and semi-detached houses. One day, Ah Long San walked into my office with a property agent to enquire about buying one of the semi-detached units. When the property agent tried to introduce us, we both started to laugh. The agent didn’t know that we knew each other from our prison days and was completely puzzled.
I explained the contract to Ah Long San and told him that he had to pay a 10 per cent deposit on the selling price of $800,000. He simply took out from his pocket a wad of cash and gave me the full sum of $800,000. I was a little shocked at the amount of money in front of me. I told him that he did not have to pay the whole purchase price immediately and doing so would only attract the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. He was not perturbed and asked me whether I wanted to keep the money for him. I politely declined. When the sale was completed, he gave a cashier’s order and took possession of the keys. He told me that he was buying the house for his mother. I believe his mother still lives there.
I would see Ah Long San occasionally in nightclubs, especially at the Lido Palace, a well-known expensive nightclub located on Havelock Road. He was a regular patron in most nightclubs. Every mama-san welcomed him as a customer because he was a big tipper. Even the valets would rush to park his car as he was known to tip them $50 every time. On one occasion, he tipped a valet $500 for parking his car.
Ah Long San was known as Singapore’s No. 1 loan shark. His empire was vast, spread across Singapore. He was a pioneer in computerising his organisation and it was reputed that his income ran from six to seven figures annually. The richer he was, the more powerful he grew. His entertainment bill alone ran to thousands of dollars every month. But the bill included entertainment of police officers and that was the start of his downfall.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), who had no interest in investigating his alleged moneylending activities, became interested in Ah Long San because of his involvement with police officers. Investigations against Ah Long San ended with him being charged with a number of corruption charges. Even before he was charged, he was seeking me out for advice and so it came as no surprise when his men came to me one day to inform me that he was going to be charged the next day in Court 26.
I appeared in Court 26 and applied for him to be released on bail. Most of the charges were for corrupting police officers to obtain favours from them. Several police officers themselves were charged with showing Ah Long San favouritism, in exchange for being entertained at the Lido Palace. Others did them for a couple of drinks and sexual favours that Ah Long San or his men arranged for them. These police officers sold their careers very cheaply. They were found guilty and punished. They deserved it.
I started negotiations with the CPIB in the hope of getting the charges against Ah Long San reduced. The CPIB was prepared to strike a deal if Ah Long San testifed against the police officers and also provided more information that could be used against other police officers. The CPIB was sure that higher ranking police officers were involved. I thought the deal was reasonable but Ah Long San refused to accept it. He said that he would not testify against the police officers and he had no information to give the CPIB regarding other police officers. He told me that he could not betray the officers who had been charged and he was confident that they would not testify against him. He was mistaken. All the police officers gave statements against him and subsequently testified against him in court. I watched him as he sat in the dock, expressionless. Later I asked him what he thought of those policemen. He smiled and told me that nothing shocked him where the police was concerned, and I remembered what my clients used to tell me: “Don’t trust a policeman.”
His case w
as heard before District Judge Jasvinder Kaur, a stern but fair judge even though she had spent many years as a DPP. Most of the witnesses who testified were employees from Lido Palace. The mama-san described how she had served Ah Long San and his “police guests”, the number of girls she had provided and who had settled the bills. The waiter testified to the number of policemen in the room and the drinks they had. In the course of the trial, it became evident that I too frequented the place. I told the judge that since all parties including the DPP had seen Lido Palace at night, maybe she should also visit the nightclub to get a real feel of it. She responded by saying that she was not going to allow me to take her to Lido Palace under any circumstances. The people in the court roared with laughter and some of the lawyers present told me it was a good try.
At the end of the trial, Ah Long San was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail. I wanted the remaining charges of similar moneylending and corruption of other people to be taken into consideration and to end the saga. Ah Long San refused. He gave me instructions to appeal against the conviction and the sentence, and I did accordingly. By the time the appeal came before Chief Justice Yong Pung How, I managed to convince Ah Long San to withdraw his appeal. A few days before the hearing date of the appeal, he came to my office and said that the CPIB must tell him how many charges they were going to proceed with out of the remaining charges. He felt he had to fight those charges. I told him: “First things first. Let us withdraw the appeal.” He agreed.
In the Appellate Court, he produced a medical certificate stating that he was not fit to attend court because of a heart problem. Chief Justice Yong adjourned the case. The next time the case came up, I again produced a medical certificate stating that Ah Long San had undergone a heart by-pass operation. The case was adjourned. The third time the appeal case came up, Ah Long San did not turn up. Many of his men were there in court but he was not. I informed the Chief Justice that he was not in court and asked whether his case could be stood down to the afternoon. The Chief Justice agreed. He did not turn up that afternoon and a warrant of arrest was issued. The hunt for Ah Long San began.
The Best I Could Page 19
