2010 robbery-murder case in Singapore
The 2010 Kallang slashings refer to a series of four robberies committed by a group of four Malaysians from Sarawak, Malaysia in the night of 29 May 2010 and the early hours of the morning of 30 May 2010 (some of the culprits were not involved in the subsequent four robberies), mostly around Kallang Area, Singapore. In the robberies, there were a total of four victims – the first three victims were seriously injured and hospitalised while a fourth victim was killed.
Three of the perpetrators were charged with murder and the final culprit remained on the run for seven years before being arrested and charged with murder. Eventually, two were convicted of murder - with one eventually hanged in 2019 and the other jailed for life and caned - while the other two were dealt with lengthy jail terms and caning for multiple charges of armed robbery with hurt.
Background.
The first three robberies.
Later on, during the early hours of 30 May 2010, 24-year-old Indian national and construction worker Sandeep Singh was chatting with family members from India on his phone while sitting on a rocking horse in a playground, and while doing so, Sandeep was attacked by a group of four robbers. He was first hit on the head from behind by one of the attackers, 31-year-old Sarawakian Tony Anak Imba, with a brick. Sandeep was also slashed on the head, left forearm, left ear, and back with a parang by Micheal Anak Garing, Tony's 22-year-old accomplice. Sandeep was robbed of his mobile phone and wallet. The skull fracture exposed Sandeep's brain and broken bone chips were embedded on his brain. Medical experts later testified that the injury would have led to Sandeep's death from a brain infection, but he survived with timely medical intervention.
After robbing Sandeep, the four robbers - Tony, Micheal, and two of their accomplices and fellow Malaysians from Sarawak, 19-year-old cleaner Hairee Anak Landak and 19-year-old Donny Anak Meluda, encountered 19-year-old Singaporean Ang Jun Heng (). At that time, Ang was walking alone along a footpath beneath the MRT tracks near Kallang MRT station after a late night out with his friends. Tony first kicked Ang. When Ang, then a full-time National Serviceman, was about to defend himself, he was attacked by the other robbers, who punched, kicked, and slashed him. Ang's left palm was severed during the attack, causing him to lose the four fingers on his left hand. He also sustained head injuries and laceration wounds, including a deep wound on his neck which almost cut his spinal cord. Nine hours after the attack, Ang was spotted by a pedestrian who spotted him lying in an open field behind a school. Medical experts highlighted at the trial that this particular injury could have been fatal without timely medical care.
The third victim was 43-year-old Indian national Egan Karrupaiah. The pipe fitter was similarly robbed of his mobile phone and wallet, and was assaulted by Micheal, Tony, and Donny (Hairee was not involved in the assault this time even though he had been there at the scene); this left him with several fractures and lacerations, and four of his fingers sliced off. Both of his arms were almost hacked to the bone.
The fourth and last robbery: the death of Shanmuganathan Dillidurai.
After the robbers had robbed Egan, they targeted 41-year-old construction worker Shanmuganathan Dillidurai whom they found riding a bicycle along Kallang Road near a condominium. Tony first attacked him by knocking him off the bicycle. After that, Shanmuganathan was severely assaulted by all the four robbers, with Micheal wielding a parang to slash him and Tony holding the man down. Shanmuganathan sustained a fractured skull, a severed left hand, a deep slash wound across his neck (severing his jugular vein) and a wound over his back which cut so deep that his shoulder blade was cracked.
Shanmuganathan did not survive the attack and he died. His body was found at 7:30 am (SGT). An autopsy conducted by forensic pathologist Dr. Paul Chui revealed that there were twenty injuries (including the four injuries mentioned above) on Shanmuganathan, and four of these injuries were the ones that killed him. At the time of his death, Shanmuganathan, who came to Singapore from Chennai to work since 2008, was married with two children. Shanmuganathan was also the last victim of the Kallang robbers' crime spree, which lasted around eight hours.
Arrests and charges.
After the commission of the four robbery offenses, police investigations led to the arrest of Micheal, Tony, and Hairee. It was found that before committing the serial robberies, the Kallang robbers had teamed up with another four Malaysians to commit another robbery in an unrelated case, where a 47-year-old Chinese national and construction worker Wang Jiu Sheng had his mobile phone stolen while getting slashed and beaten up. During the attack, Wang suffered deep cut on four fingers on his left hand, which he raised to defend himself.
As a result, the Kallang robbers' four other companions - Peter Usit Musa, 22; Slyvester Beragok, 26; Landa Surai, 28; and Shahman Milak, 21 - who participated in the robbery of Wang Jiu Sheng, were arrested. However, of all the eight people in the robbery, only Donny Meluda was not arrested, as he fled from Singapore into Malaysia hours after committing the gruesome robberies. Micheal, Tony, and Hairee, who were identified as the main participants of the Kallang robberies (together with the missing Donny Medula), were charged with the murder of Shanmuganathan Dillidurai; the crime of murder was considered as a hanging offence under Singapore law and thus carries the mandatory death penalty at that time. The four other people, who were not directly involved in the Kallang case, were only charged with gang robbery for their participation in the Wang Jiu Sheng robbery case. The investigation officer of the Kallang case was Senior Staff Sergeant Iskandar bin Rahmat, the police officer who would murder a father and son during a robbery in Kovan three years later and sentenced to death.
The convictions of the four minor accomplices.
In October 2010, merely five months after the Kallang slashings, one of the minor accomplices – Shahman Milak – was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and six strokes of the cane for attempted robbery after pleading guilty to the charge. Peter Usit Musa, Landa Surai, and Slyvester Beragok were brought to trial for the gang robbery of Wang Jiu Sheng. The trio were each sentenced to six years' imprisonment and twelve strokes of the cane for gang robbery in February 2011.
The trials of the Kallang murderers.
Hairee Anak Landak's conviction and sentence.
Eventually, the murder charge against Hairee Anak Landak, who was of Iban descent, was reduced to one of armed robbery with hurt. Hairee pleaded guilty to the reduced charge; he also admitted to two more charges of armed robbery with hurt relating to the attacks on Sandeep and Ang and was thus convicted of these three criminal charges while a fourth charge was taken into consideration during sentencing.
On 18 January 2013, 23-year-old Hairee Landak was sentenced to a total of 33 years' imprisonment and the maximum caning sentence of 24 strokes of the cane; during sentencing, Justice Tay Yong Kwang reportedly pointed out the "extremely vicious" nature of the attacks, agreeing with the prosecution to commit Hairee to a lengthy jail term with caning despite the mitigation plea by Hairee's two lawyers John Abraham and Rajan Supramaniam for leniency on account of Hairee's young age at the time of the offense and his cooperation with the police after his arrest. There was no appeal filed against the sentence.
The murder trial of Micheal Anak Garing, and Tony Anak Imba.
The trial of Micheal Anak Garing and Tony Anak Imba began on 3 October 2013. Micheal was represented by lawyers Ramesh Tiwary and Josephus Tan, while Tony was represented by lawyers B. J. Lean and Amarick Gill Singh. The prosecution team consisted of Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Anandan Bala, DPP Seraphina Fong Mian Yi, and DPP Marcus Foo Guo Wen from the Attorney-General's Chambers. The case was heard before Justice Choo Han Teck in the High Court of Singapore.
At the trial, all the three victims - Sandeep Singh, Ang Jun Heng, and Egan Karrupaiah - all testified at the trial against the two murder defendants. Even though he was the investigative officer in charge of this case, Senior Staff Sergeant Iskandar bin Rahmat, however, did not come to the trial to testify against the two men because he was undergoing investigations and remanded for his involvement in the Kovan double murders, which he committed merely three months before the beginning of the men's murder trial. The defense counsel for the two men sought to object to the prosecution's evidence regarding the first robberies they committed before that of Shanmuganathan, arguing over the pre-judicial effect it might have on their clients' cases. Later on, Justice Choo ruled that the evidence of the other robberies are relevant to the case.
In their respective defenses, both men gave conflicting defenses and blamed each other for the death of Shanmuganathan. Micheal insisted in his defense that he did wield the parang but only swung it over the victim's head, claiming it was Tony who snatched the parang from him and ran back to the crime scene to slash the victim after they robbed him of his wallet and left the scene (which is consistent to his statements to the police); while Tony asserted in his defense that it was Micheal alone who used the parang to attack Shanmuganathan, even claiming he did not share the common intention of assaulting the victim, merely tagging along to commit robbery and even claimed he tried to stop Micheal from using the parang, at one point, during the attack on Sandeep Singh.
Additionally, Hairee Landak, who was serving his 33-year sentence at the time of the two men's trial, testified that Micheal was the only person of the four who used the parang, and even stated Tony had held down the victim Shanmuganathan while Micheal continued his slashing attack on the man. However, the inconsistencies in his police statements and court testimonies, as well as his difficulty in recalling some of the events were impeached and pointed out by Micheal's lawyer Ramesh Tiwary as alleged lies to the court.
Verdict and conviction.
The trial lasted for twelve days. On 20 January 2014, Justice Choo Han Teck delivered his verdict. He found both Micheal Garing and Tony Imba guilty of murder and convicted them as charged. Justice Choo determined that Micheal was the only person who used the 58-cm long parang to attack not only the deceased victim Shanmuganathan, but the other victims of their robbery spree, rejecting Micheal's evidence that Tony was the one using the parang to slash Shanmuganathan. Justice Choo also rejected Tony's claims of his only intention was to rob the victims, pointing out his active involvement in the robberies had contradicted his oblivion of the seriousness of the assaults by Micheal with the parang, which he said in his own words while reading the verdict, "Having seen three victims lying in their own blood, it lies ill in his mouth to say at trial that he did not know that Shanmuganathan would be slashed."
Additionally, Justice Choo pointed out that despite the unclear aspects of Hairee's evidence, he accepted Hairee's evidence of Tony restraining the deceased victim during the lethal attack, and also the prosecution's evidence of the other robberies committed before Shanmuganathan's despite them having stood down the robbery charges, finding the latter relevant to the facts of the case. However, Justice Choo stated he would reserve judgement and take some time to decide on the sentences of the two men, postponing the sentencing to a later date, allowing both the prosecution and defense to make submissions on sentencing.
At the time of Micheal and Tony's trial, the changes to the law took effect in 2013, which made the death penalty no longer mandatory for certain murder offenses which were committed with no intention to kill; for this, the judges are allowed to impose a discretionary sentence of life imprisonment with/without caning other than the death penalty to such offenders. Micheal and Tony were charged with murder under section 300(c) of the Penal Code, which constitutes an act where "a person intentionally inflict a