The Best I Could (17 page)

The differences between Singapore’s drug laws and those of other countries were clearly illustrated in the case of German national, Julia Susanne Bohl. She faced the gallows following a drug bust at her downtown apartment in Singapore on March 13, 2002. The 22-year-old student at the German school in Singapore was arrested, together with her 21-year-old Singaporean boyfriend and nine others, on suspicion of running a drug ring. Authorities seized 687 grams of cannabis, 60 pills of Ecstasy and a number of designer drugs at the apartment. Under the “presumption clause” in the Misuse of Drugs Act, anyone caught in possession of a certain amount of a specified drug is presumed to be trafficking in the substance. Friends and teachers of Bohl at the German school said she was a very inconspicuous and polite woman. Some ventured to say that it was her boyfriend who had introduced her to the party scene and was more at fault for her problems. Bohl had been living in Singapore with her parents for about five years, but at the time she was apprehended, her parents had divorced and separately returned to live in Germany. Her father had been an engineer with Lufthansa in Singapore while her mother taught at the German school. Her mother had objected to her boyfriend, whom I only knew as Ben. Bohl subsequently moved out of her parents’ home not long before they returned to Germany, and stayed with Ben and his friends. The apartment was leased under Bohl’s name because she was the only one who was gainfully employed. She was working under a job training scheme with Daimler-Chrysler. I felt that she was an attractive young woman mixing around with some ugly people.

Bohl’s parents flew back to Singapore to be by her side during the case. On March 15, Bohl was charged in court with two others for being in possession of 687 grams of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking. If found guilty, she would be hanged. Bohl was the first female Caucasian foreigner to face execution in Singapore since Johannes van Damme, a Dutch man caught with 4.6 kg of heroin in his suitcase as he was leaving Singapore in 1991. Van Damme was hanged in August 1994 despite pleas for clemency from the Dutch government and Queen Beatrix. Singapore firmly rejected pressure from the Netherlands to stop the execution and dismissed suggestions of a “cultural gap” between the two countries.

As soon as Bohl was caught, the German government and its ambassador in Singapore mounted a diplomatic offensive on her behalf, meeting several senior Singapore government ministers in the process. Coincidentally, it was a technicality that saved Bohl from the gallows in the wake of this campaign. Tests revealed that the amount of pure cannabis seized in Bohl’s apartment weighed in at only 281 grams, below the 500 grams threshold. This meant that Bohl faced a jail sentence of five to 20 years instead of execution. After negotiations with the Attorney-General’s Chambers, Bohl still faced several charges but none was on trafficking in drugs. Her lawyer then was Michael Eu. Bohl’s parents later came to see me through my pupil Ravi Isaac, who was responsible for me getting the brief. After I took up the case, many people erroneously thought that I had been responsible for getting her charges reduced, but that actually happened when Eu was still her lawyer. I also recall being asked by some European journalists why I didn’t advise Bohl to jump bail. This is not the type of question that a lawyer can answer and, in any case, it didn’t deserve an answer as it showed a lack of respect for me and lawyers in general.

Bohl was eventually sentenced to five years in prison. She’s now in Germany having served her time. Anti-death penalty activists would cite her case in their efforts to save Vietnamese-Australian Van Tuong Nguyen who I mentioned earlier in the book. I didn’t represent Nguyen. He was caught with heroin while on transit through Changi Airport on December 12, 2002. He had been on his way back to Melbourne from Cambodia. The amount of heroin Nguyen carried was 25 times the amount which meant an automatic death sentence. He was convicted and, despite serious diplomatic efforts by Australian authorities, was hanged on December 2, 2005. I remember telling the Australian media just before his hanging that the only chance of saving Nguyen would have been before he went to trial, when prosecutors were finalising the charges and still had the prerogative to make changes. I told them: “What is the point in coming in now? The President has already refused clemency and the presiding judge in capital drug cases has no discretion. Death is mandatory. It is like visiting a patient in hospital when he is already dead.”

While the Australians were slow off the blocks in their diplomatic efforts on Nguyen, the German ambassador impressed me with his handling of the Bohl case. Volker Schlegel stood by Bohl all the way. He was a fantastic man, who gave me all the support and encouragement I needed. He would come to my office and we would spend hours discussing Bohl’s case. I have acted for other nationalities and observed that the dedication shown by their ambassadors is not the same. Some can’t be bothered if their nationals get into trouble in Singapore. Others only show an interest when the accused person is someone famous or important or well-connected. These ambassadors could have learnt a thing or two from Schlegel. Another embassy that I thought really cared for its nationals was the Belgian embassy. I saw this in a high profile cocaine case in which a Belgian lady’s only crime was being married to a Sri Lankan national charged with drug consumption. She was charged with abetting her husband to escape the jurisidiction of Singapore. A person at the Belgian embassy, whom I only remember as Claire, stood by the lady through to the end of the case.

I visited Bohl quite often in jail as her parents were overseas and couldn’t come to Singapore on a regular basis. I persuaded her to study and got permission for her to read economics through the prestigious London School of Economics. She did well in her first year. When she called me from Amsterdam after her release, she told me that she was going to work and would continue her studies later. To her credit, she turned down all offers from publishers and TV stations for interviews. I think she just wanted to forget the whole affair. In 2006, she offered to be my guide if I were to go to the World Cup tournament in Germany. I didn’t attend it and haven’t spoken to her for a long time now. Wherever she is, I hope she won’t be tempted by drugs again.

Another case that comes to my mind, and which is different from my usual murder cases, is the Residents’ Committee (RC) poisoning case which was classified as culpable homicide. The reason I want to mention this case is that it highlights the stupid things people can do when they are offended or ‘lose face’. In this case, the culprit didn’t even realise that his actions could hurt people he didn’t intend to hurt. The worst thing about it is that he wasn’t a hot-headed youngster. He was a retiree from a responsible job who should have known better.

The year 2002 started and ended badly for former government laboratory officer Quek Loo Ming. He is in jail today because he had a petty beef with the chairperson of the Bukit Timah Zone 5 RC, Madam Doreen Lum. He felt she took advantage of him and did not give him enough credit for his volunteer work at the RC. Most people would settle such problems face to face, and murder can virtually be ruled out. It couldn’t be ruled out in Quek’s case, however, because his frustration with Madam Lum eventually led to a death.

The setting for the 56-year-old retiree’s crime was a New Year’s Eve party in 2001 which the RC was organising. Madam Lum had asked Quek to buy 20 packets of chicken rice for the people who were helping to organise the party. Quek was aggrieved at being given the task at short notice and hatched a plan to get back at her. He had some powdered pesticide called methomyl, commonly used by orchid growers, in his possession. It was a controlled poison under the Environmental Pollution Control Act. Methomyl is a cholinesterase-inhibitor; it acts on the nervous system, causing muscular paralysis and death in large doses. Quek had obtained it at the Toxicology Laboratory of the Department of Scientific Services when he was working on a case in which a Filipino maid committed suicide by drinking methomyl mixed with coffee. Quek put about one teaspoon of methomyl into an empty mineral water bottle, filled it up with water and placed the bottle on the cabinet opposite Madam Lum’s office. This was where the centre’s supply of mineral water was usually placed. He hoped that the chairperson would drink the contaminated water.

His plan failed because she never drank it. Madam Fong Oi Lin, Richard Ho Sin Shong and Wong Ah Kim did instead, and they all became gravely ill, foaming at the mouth right from the outset. Before she lost consciousness, Madam Fong had the presence of mind to pour away the remaining water in the bottle as she had found it smelly. All three were taken to National University Hospital. Madam Fong never recovered and died on January 3, 2002. Ho and Wong survived, though they endured a lot of suffering as they battled with the poison.

The police linked the methomyl in the water to Quek and he was arrested. It was a clear-cut case. He maintained he had no intention of killing anyone and had only wanted Madam Lum to have diarrhoea. He pleaded guilty to the charges of culpable homicide and voluntarily causing grievous hurt. Because he was not a layman but a former lab technician who knew the dangers of methomyl, the punishment meted out to Quek was severe. He was viewed as acting with complete disregard for the lives and safety of others. On November 8, 2002, Quek was sentenced to 10 years on the first charge and five years on the second charge. He is currently serving his time in prison.

With Quek, it was certainly a case of hell having no greater fury than a retiree scorned. I found Quek a very foolish man who took offence over petty things and his reaction which led to Madam Fong’s untimely death was totally uncalled for. I believed him when he told me he just wanted to “get” the chairperson Madam Lum. He wanted her to suffer diarrhoea. In his determination to get her, he forgot about the amount of poison he put in the water. He should have known that the poison could kill because of what had happened to the Filipino maid. There had also been many cases of methomyl-related murders in other countries which Quek should have become aware of at the time of the Filipino maid’s suicide case. In contrast to Quek, I thought his wife a remarkable lady. She was calm and emotionless throughout the proceedings. She even paid my fees without bargaining. She told me she had moved out of her neighbourhood and was living elsewhere in Singapore. I believe she was thinking of emigrating. She was concerned about whether her husband could eventually join her when he was released from prison.

One of the issues that angers me about Singapore is the treatment of domestic maids. We have seen a constant stream of maid abuse cases over the years, even by professionals who should know better. Is it the Singapore mentality to get what they perceive as value for money that leads to these abuse cases? In the process, Singaporeans forget that maids are human beings too and deserve respect. Maids take a big risk to come to Singapore to earn money for their families back home.

I defended the accused in Singapore’s “worst case of maid abuse so far”—those were the prosecution’s words. I can tell you right now that what happened to the maid made me sick to my stomach. Muawanatul Chasanah was a healthy, optimistic 17-year-old when she first arrived in Singapore from Indonesia to work as a maid in 2000. She was probably already thinking of how she would send money back to her family in Indonesia, like many others had done before her and many would do after her. But her luck ran out the moment she entered Ng Hua Chye’s home. Only nine months later, she was dead.

Muawanatul had weighed 50 kg when she came but only 36 kg when she died. Her body bore the scars of more than 200 separate injuries, all probably inflicted on her by Ng. Now, maids in Singapore are required to go for six-monthly medical check-ups. During her nine months of torture, Muawanatul had two check-ups. Though her physical condition and injuries must have shown that she was in deep distress, no alarm was raised by the doctors and nurses. Neighbours had seen the woman always appearing tired and unhappy. They didn’t know that Ng, a 47-year-old tour guide, had repeatedly abused the Indonesian with his fists, a cane and a hammer, burnt her with cigarettes and scalded her with boiling water. It is understood that Ng’s wife was present at some of the beatings but didn’t appear to do anything about it. He later told the police: “There were so many times I beat her, I lost count of them.”

Muawanatul had been starved, occasionally given only packets of instant noodles for her lunch and dinner, and it was hunger that provoked the assault that finally ended her life on December 2, 2001. On that day, Ng accused her of stealing leftover porridge from his infant daughter and kicked her so severely that her stomach ruptured. She died several days later of peritonitis, lying in agony in a vomit-stained T-shirt before police arrived too late to save her. Fearing she might die, Ng had gone to the neighbourhood police post to report that he had assaulted her.

Ng was initially charged with murder, but the charge was reduced to one of culpable homicide as the prosecution was not in a position to prove murder. In the plea bargain, the parties agreed that the prosecution would not ask for life imprisonment and would leave the sentencing to the judge. Ng’s history of violence against Muawanatul suggested that such a concession should not have been made. On July 19, 2002, Ng was sentenced to a total of 18 years and six months imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane for what the prosecution described as the worst case of abuse of a domestic worker in Singapore. Deputy Public Prosecutor Lee Sing Lit described Ng as “inhuman”.

Ng’s treatment of Muawanatul struck a nerve with most Singaporeans. Like most other maids in Singapore, she was not guaranteed a minimum wage, could be required to work all her waking hours and was not automatically entitled to even one day off each week. She could also be dismissed without notice or right of appeal and sent home immediately on the whim of her employer. Her extreme bad luck was to be assigned to a despicable man who thought nothing of dehumanising her. In the end, he took her life.