List of major crimes in Singapore (2000–2009)

For other major crimes committed in Singapore, see List of major crimes in Singapore.

This incomplete list is frequently updated to include new information.

The following is a list of major crimes in Singapore that happened between 2000 and 2009. They are arranged in chronological order.

2000

• 7 February 2000: 27-year-old Linda Chua, a finance executive, was brutally assaulted and raped at Bukit Batok Nature Park while jogging there. She died eight days later on 14 February 2000. As of July 2021, the case remains unsolved.
• 17 May 2000: 36-year-old Leong Fook Weng, who was having a fight with four people, was found dead in a vacant plot of land with only his underwear on and several stab wounds on his body. 22-year-old William Ho Kah Wei (alias Soh Tan Huat), who knew that the gang of four has killed Leong but never reported the crime to the police, was arrested and sent to jail for six months. The four assailants all fled from Singapore after killing Leong, but one of them, 36-year-old Robson Tay Teik Chai, was discovered to be in France serving a two-year sentence for drug offences. After Tay's release, he was sent back to Singapore in 2003, where he was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane for culpable homicide. The second assailant, 34-year-old See Chee Keong, was discovered in a Cambodian prison, where he was serving 18 years' imprisonment for drug trafficking. See, who served 13 years out of his jail term, later received a royal pardon and in November 2013, See was released and deported from Cambodia and returned to Singapore for trial. Having embraced religion and reformed while in prison, See expressed remorse for his crime and willingly surrendered to face the consequences of his crime, and his family and grandson tried to plead to the courts for leniency on his behalf. See was sentenced to ten years' imprisonment on 20 April 2016 for culpable homicide, and he was spared from caning due to him having reached the age of 50. The remaining two assailants - Ong Chin Huat (aged 41 in 2000) and Lim Hin Teck (or Lim Teck Hin; aged 36 in 2000) - remain at large as of today.
• 15 June 2000: 65-year-old part-time taxi driver Ong Huay Dee was attacked by his passenger who earlier told him to drive to Pasir Ris, and the man used a hammer to bludgeon Ong on the head several times, causing Ong to die from fatal head injuries. Ong's passenger and killer, 25-year-old Thai national Khwan-On Natthaphon, was arrested and charged with murder. He was found guilty and sentenced to death in August 2001, and after losing his appeal, Khwan-On was hanged on 27 September 2002.
• 8 and 26 August 2000: On the morning of 8 August, 34-year-old Wan Kamil bin Md Shafian, 35-year-old Ibrahim bin Mohd and 30-year-old Rosli bin Ahmat intended to commit armed robbery. They targeted a taxi driven by 42-year-old Koh Ngiap Yong and told him to drive to Chestnut Drive before handcuffing him. Kamil ordered Rosli to stab Koh with a bayonet before they unlocked the handcuffs. In the process, they dropped a handcuff key. They drove to Woodlands, where they planned to commit robbery but eventually backed out due to the presence of CCTVs. Koh's body was discovered the following morning, but the murder was unsolved due to a lack of leads until another murder occurred on the evening of 26 August. Kamil and Ibrahim had robbed and fatally shot 39-year-old Jagabar Sathik (also spelt Jahabar Sathick), a money changer, at an overhead bridge in Jalan Kukoh. The police traced the stolen phone from the deceased Sathik to Kamil and Ibrahim. All three of them were arrested on 15 October 2000 by the police tactical unit STAR. Koh's murder was traced to them when the handcuffs and keys recovered at Kamil's flat did not tally with each other. On 5 September 2001, all three of them were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by High Court judge M. P. H. Rubin. On 7 March 2002, the Court of Appeal turned down their appeals and all three of them were eventually hanged on 25 October 2002.

2001

• 14 May 2001: 34-year-old Anthony Ler Wee Teang made headlines in Singapore in 2001 for hiring a youth to assassinate his wife, 30-year-old Annie Leong Wai Mun, who was in the midst of divorcing him, so that he could become the sole owner of their flat and gain custody of their four-year-old daughter. Ler approached four youths and offered them a reward of S$100,000 to kill Leong. A 15-year-old boy whom Ler had known for five years accepted the offer. Ler threatened and manipulated the youth to carry out the deed and after several failed attempts, the youth fatally stabbed Leong with a knife given to him by Ler. The boy, in view of his age, was not named to protect his identity. Ler, who was seen smiling throughout the court proceedings and in the media, was eventually convicted of masterminding the murder and sentenced to death by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang on 5 December 2001. Ler appealed to the Court of Appeal but failed; President S. R. Nathan also rejected his plea for clemency. As such, Ler was eventually hanged in Changi Prison on 13 December 2002. The youth, due to his age, was spared the gallows and indefinitely detained under the President's Pleasure for 17 years for committing murder. The youth had been released since 2 November 2018 but a gag order remains in force to protect his identity.
• 30–31 May 2001: A 17-year-old football player, Sulaiman bin Hashim, was brutally assaulted and murdered by eight members of the street gang Salakau, led by their 21-year-old leader Norhisham bin Mohamad Dahlan, outside a pub at South Bridge Road. Six gang members were found guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, rioting, voluntarily causing grievous hurt, or any combination of these charges. One of them, Muhamad Hasik bin Sahar, was sentenced to life imprisonment and 16 strokes of the cane, while the rest, including the mastermind Norhisham, received jail terms of between ten years and three years, as well as between 16 and six strokes of the cane. As of July 2021, two other gang members – Sharulhawzi bin Ramly and Muhammad Syamsul Ariffin bin Brahim – are still at large.
• 10 August 2001:
  • At Queenstown Remand Prison in Singapore, 19-year-old Shankar Suppiahmaniam, who was held in remand for abducting and raping two little girls, was strangled to death by his 35-year-old cellmate Kanesan Ratnam. Kanesan confessed to the murder afterwards, claiming that he was angered at Shankar over a spilled tea incident, in which Shankar refused to clean up, and Kanesan himself wanted to get the death penalty as an easy way to die after some suicide attempts. Kanesan, who had been in remand for a sexual crime, was charged with murder, and after a three-day trial (in which Kanesan elected to remain silent), Kanesan was found guilty of murdering Shankar and sentenced to death on 27 February 2002. Kanesan declined to appeal and he was therefore hanged on 10 January 2003.
  • 33-year-old businessman Tay Teng Joo was kidnapped one day before his wedding by 45-year-old Chng Teo Heng and two accomplices, 52-year-old Agnes Ng Lei Eng and 42-year-old Ng Soon Teck. They blindfolded him and drove him around in a car while demanding a ransom of S$4 million from his family. The sum was eventually reduced to S$1.22 million and Tay was released. The police managed to arrest all the three kidnappers and recover the ransom. All three of them were found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced to life imprisonment. Chng was also sentenced to six strokes of the cane for using a knife during the kidnapping. Ng had asked the judge to give her the death penalty but the judge refused and sentenced her to life imprisonment. A 2013 law website revealed that Ng died on 13 June 2013, but the cause of her death was unknown.
• 20 September 2001: Shortly after passing the package to an undercover cop disguised as a buyer, 21-year-old Vignes Mourthi was arrested during an undercover operation by the Central Narcotics Bureau. Vignes's accomplice Moorthy Angappan, who was his family friend, was also arrested. Both Vignes and Moorthy were charged with trafficking 27.65g of diamorphine, and they were found guilty in August 2002, and sentenced to death. After exhausting his avenues of appeal, Vignes tried to file motions for a re-trial and insisted his innocence but ultimately, his bid to escape the gallows failed. After which, Vignes and Moorthy were both hanged on 26 September 2003.
• 2 October 2001: 16-year-old Gunasegaran Ramasamy robbed and stabbed 28-year-old Soh San in a lift at a HDB block in Bukit Batok. Soh died of her wounds while Gunasegaran fled with S$30. The case was unsolved despite appeals for eyewitnesses from an episode of the television series Crimewatch. Gunasegaran was arrested for committing other offences in the following years and the police did not know about his role in Soh's death. On 17 November 2013, out of guilt, a 28-year-old Gunasegaran surrendered himself and confessed to killing Soh. Although he was initially charged with murder, the charge was reduced to robbery with hurt in 2016 and on 20 March 2017, Gunasegaran was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane by district judge Tan Jen Tse.
• 8 November 2001: 48-year-old Peh Thian Hui was arrested at his flat following a police report lodged by a 15-year-old girl. The girl reported to the police and revealed that throughout a period of 4 years from 1996 to 2000, she has been raped by Peh over 50 times, with the consent of her mother, who was Peh's lover for the past 10 years even though he was married with three children. The girl was reported to have suffered from a sexually-transmitted disease as a result of the rapes. The girl's 35-year-old mother and Peh's lover, who cannot be named to protect the identity of the girl, was also arrested and promptly charged with abetting her lover to rape her daughter, and Peh was also charged with rape. In May 2002, both Peh and the mother pleaded guilty to the respective charges against them at the trial. They were each sentenced to a total of 36 years in prison. In addition, Peh also received the maximum of 24 strokes of the cane for raping the girl. Subsequently, the couple appealed against their 36-year sentences, but in September 2002, their appeals were rejected by Chief Justice Yong Pung How (and two other judges) of the Court of Appeal.
• 2 December 2001: 19-year-old Indonesian domestic helper Muawanatul Chasanah was physically abused and starved over a nine-month period by her employer, 47-year-old Ng Hua Chye. On 1 December 2001, Ng kicked her in the stomach so hard that it ruptured; she eventually died due to peritonitis. The case came to light after Ng surrendered himself to the police on 2 December 2001. Initially charged with murder, Ng had ultimately his charges reduced to culpable homicide and voluntarily causing hurt. On 19 July 2002, High Court judge Choo Han Teck sentenced Ng to 18 years and six months' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane. Ng's wife, 30-year-old Rainbow Tan Chai Hong, was also arrested and charged with voluntarily causing hurt to Muawanatul and failing to report her husband's actions to the police. On 19 February 2003, magistrate Alvin Koh sentenced Tan to nine months' imprisonment.
• 9–24 December 2001: A plot by terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) to bomb several embassies in Singapore and Yishun MRT station was uncovered by the Internal Security Department, leading to the arrests of 15 Singapore-based JI members that month. In the subsequent years, about 40 more JI-linked individuals were arrested.
• 22 December 2001: During an argument late at night over an unsettled issue, 23-year-old Indian national and electrician Arun Prakash Vaithilingam used a kitchen knife to stab the chest of his flatmate and colleague Lourdusamy Lenin Selvanayagan in their Marsiling flat (which they shared with 9 other foreign workers), in front of those awakened by the fierce argument. Despite being rushed to hospital and the utmost efforts of doctors to resuscitate him, Lenin was pronounced dead at the age of 23 at 1.02 a.m. on the early morning of 23 December 2001 at Alexandra Hospital. After briefly accompanying the victim to hospital, Arun left the hospital and subsequently went into hiding for nearly 3 months until on 18 March 2002, when he was caught trying to leave Singapore with a fake passport at Woodlands Checkpoint. Although Arun raised a defence of sudden fight, the High Court ruled that Arun had taken undue advantage over the unarmed victim by using a knife during the dispute, and therefore found Arun guilty of murdering Lenin, and sentenced Arun to death. Arun was hanged on 3 October 2003 in spite of appeals for clemency from the Indian government and human rights groups.
• 31 December 2001: 56-year-old Quek Loo Ming added one teaspoon of methomyl into a bottle of water and hoped that 49-year-old Doreen Lum, the chairperson of a residents' committee in Bukit Timah, would drink it. He had done so because he was unhappy that she had treated him like an "errand boy" when he was volunteering at the committee, and had hoped that she would suffer from diarrhoea. Lum did not drink the water; three others drank it instead and ended up being hospitalised. One of the three victims, 62-year-old Fong Oi Lin, died of poisoning on 3 January 2002; the other two – 66-year-old Richard Ho Sin Shong and 38-year-old Wong Ah Kim – survived. Police investigations led to the arrest of Quek, who was initially charged with murder. On 5 August 2002, High Court judge Choo Han Teck sentenced Quek to nine years' imprisonment for culpable homicide and a concurrent jail term of three years for voluntarily causing grievous hurt. On 8 November 2002, after the prosecution appealed for a heavier sentence, the Court of Appeal increased Quek's two jail terms on both charges to ten years and five years respectively, with both sentences to run consecutively, making it a total of 15 years' imprisonment.

2002

• 2 January 2002: Known as the "Orchard Towers double murders", 44-year-old British financial adviser Michael McCrea killed his chauffeur and friend, 46-year-old Kho Nai Guan, and Kho's girlfriend, 29-year-old Chinese national Lan Ya Ming, in his apartment in Balmoral Park. The killings had been triggered by a quarrel after Kho insulted McCrea's girlfriend, 22-year-old Audrey Ong Pei Ling. McCrea and Kho then got into a fight, which ended with McCrea strangling Kho to death. McCrea also knocked Lan unconscious and later secured plastic bags over her head, causing her to suffocate to death. McCrea and Ong later contacted their respective friends, Gemma Louise Ramsbottom and Justin Cheo Yi Tang, for help in disposing of the two dead bodies. On 4 January, Kho's body was stuffed into a wicker basket and left in the rear seat of a Daewoo Chairman while Lan's body was stuffed into the car boot; the car was then abandoned at Orchard Towers. McCrea and Ong then fled Singapore on 5 January, but were arrested in Melbourne in June 2002 and extradited to Singapore in 2003 and 2005 respectively. In order to secure McCrea's extradition, Singapore had to assure Australia that he would not be sentenced to death if he was found guilty of murder as Australian law prohibits the extradition of anyone to another jurisdiction if the individual could be sentenced to death. Ong was sentenced on 7 February 2003 to 12 years' imprisonment for her role in disposing the victims' bodies. Ramsbottom and Cheo testified against McCrea during his trial, claiming that they had been threatened with bodily harm if they did not cooperate. McCrea eventually pleaded guilty to culpable homicide and concealing evidence of the killings. On 29 June 2006, High Court judge Choo Han Teck sentenced McCrea to 24 years' imprisonment. McCrea appealed against his sentence but the three-judge Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal as they deemed that he lacked remorse. If Michael McCrea served his sentence with good behaviour, he will be released from prison early on 29 June 2022 after serving at least 16 years in prison.
• 4 February 2002: During an argument in the middle of a drinking session, 34-year-old Jin Yugang picked up a knife and stabbed his 32-year-old roommate Wang Hong to death. Jin was arrested soon after the brutal stabbing and was charged with murder. On 16 January 2003, Justice Tay Yong Kwang of the High Court found Jin guilty of murdering Wang and sentenced him to death. Jin lost his appeal and was hanged on 19 March 2004.
• February 2002 – July 2012: For over a period of ten years, Perak-born Malaysian and accountant Ewe Pang Kooi siphoned $41 million from over 20 companies which he was formerly employed under during the past decade mainly to feed his gambling addiction, as well as settle debts or reinstate amounts he had siphoned off. To cover his tracks, he moved funds between the various entities. Ewe's wrongdoings were uncovered in July 2012 when one of the companies, the HP Group chased him about the assets from the liquidation of the companies. Ewe was arrested and faced 50 charges of criminal breach of trust as an agent, which potentially warrants the maximum term of life imprisonment. Only $17 million were recovered by the police while the remaining $24 million remained unaccounted for. Ewe was found guilty of his crimes. In view of Ewe's advanced age of 65, his remorse and full cooperation with the police, High Court judge Chan Seng Onn sentenced Ewe Pang Kooi to 25 years and 10 months' imprisonment on 16 July 2019.
• 8 May 2002: 36-year-old Yen May Woen was caught with 120 sachets of diamorphine while she was alighting on a taxi at a Toa Payoh carpark. Yen was charged with smuggling 30.16g of diamorphine and found guilty in March 2003, leading to the trial court sentencing Yen to death. After losing her appeal in July 2003, Yen was executed at Changi Prison on 19 March 2004; she remained as the last woman to be hanged in Singapore for the next 19 years since 2004, until a female drug trafficker Saridewi binte Djamani was scheduled to hang on 28 July 2023.
• 28 May 2002: 23-year-old Indonesian domestic worker Sundarti Supriyanto fatally stabbed and murdered her 34-year-old employer, Angie Ng, in her office in Bukit Merah. After that, she set fire to the office and came out carrying Ng's 18-month-old son, Leon Poh. Ng's three-year-old daughter, Crystal Poh, died in the fire. Sundarti was arrested after knife wounds were discovered on Ng's body. Although she lied at first that the fire had been caused by masked men, she eventually admitted to starting the fire but denied killing Ng. During her trial, the prosecution sought to portray her as a cold-blooded killer and discredit her claims of being abused by Ng. The defence, on the other hand, argued that she had been abused by Ng and that had caused her to lose control of herself and kill her employer. After a 27-day trial, High Court judge M. P. H. Rubin accepted Sundarti's allegations of Ng starving and physically abusing her based on the testimonies of Ng's colleagues who witnessed these abuses and thus found Sundarti guilty of a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and sentenced her on 25 September 2004 to life imprisonment.
• 5 August 2002: Soosainathan Dass Saminathan, a 40-year-old unemployed Singaporean, had killed six-month-old Anjeli Elisaputri, the daughter of his friend Jalil Hameed and Jalil's Indonesian girlfriend. He was said to have abducted the baby while her mother was sleeping next to the infant before he sexually assaulted and killed her. He also wrapped the baby's corpse in a blanket before disposing it down a rubbish chute. Later, the police arrested Soosainathan as a suspect and charged him with the infant's murder. On 15 July 2003, Soosainathan was found guilty of Anjeli's murder and sentenced to death. He was hanged on 21 May 2004 after losing his appeal against the death sentence.
• December 2002: Australian citizen Van Tuong Nguyen was convicted of carrying about 400 grams of heroin at Changi Airport while travelling from Cambodia to Australia and sentenced to death on 20 March 2004 by High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu. After a failed appeal to the Court of Appeal and despite pleas for clemency from the Australian government, Nguyen was hanged on 2 December 2005.

2003

• 9 January 2003: 26-year-old Thai housewife Thabun Pranee was raped and murdered by a robber who stole her gold items and other valuables from her Chai Chee flat. 29-year-old Tan Chee Wee, a Malaysian friend and gambling partner of Thabun's husband, was arrested for the crime and charged with murder, rape and robbery. Tan was found guilty of murder after a five-day trial and sentenced to death by High Court judge Woo Bih Li on 29 September 2003. Tan's appeal was dismissed and he was hanged on 11 June 2004.
• 10 March 2003: 32-year-old Diana Teo Siew Peng, a divorcee with a son, was pushed to her death by her 38-year-old boyfriend Harith Gary Lee, alias Lee Cheng Thiam. The murder was witnessed by Teo's 14-year-old son, father and some of their neighbours. It was revealed that Teo, who dated Lee for more than a year, had wanted to break up with Lee due to her unhappiness with Lee's over-possessiveness and their personality differences. Lee, who denied killing his girlfriend, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in April 2004, and lost his appeal in September 2004. Lee was hanged on 22 April 2005.
• 28 June 2003: 68-year-old Chi Tue Tiong, the caretaker of a Geylang apartment, was brutally murdered in his room, with the assailant(s) using a wooden pestle to bludgeon him on the head at least nine times and caused Chi to die from extensive skull fractures and a brain injury. Two days later, one of the killers, 35-year-old Zailani Ahmad, was arrested for killing Chi and charged with murder. He was convicted and sentenced to death in March 2004, and lost his appeal in November 2004, and since then, he was hanged. Zailani's Indonesian girlfriend Rachel, who was also involved in the murder, had escaped to Batam, Indonesia and was never caught as of today.
• 7 August 2003: Selvaraju s/o Satippan, a jobless man, was arrested for kidnapping 22-year-old Nina Elizabeth Varghese, a MediaCorp journalist, and charged with kidnapping, causing hurt and attempted murder. In 2004, a 45-year-old Selvaraju was sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang. He appealed against his sentence but lost the appeal.
• 25 December 2003: A seven-year-old girl was briefly kidnapped by 35-year-old Tan Ping Koon and 42-year-old Chua Ser Lien. She was in a house at Yio Chu Kang when Chua sneaked in and took her into a car driven by Tan. A catering assistant caught them in the act and took down the car's licence plate number. The information was relayed to the catering assistant's husband. When he spotted the getaway car, he decided to follow them in his own vehicle. The two kidnappers realised they were being followed so they released the girl at Tampines. However, the two kidnappers called the girl's father the following day and demanded S$1 million from him or they would hurt her family. The sum of S$70,000 was eventually agreed and paid to them before Tan and Chua were subsequently arrested on 27 December in the same year. They were both found guilty of kidnapping and sentenced by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang to life imprisonment and three strokes of the cane each. 17 years later, a 58-year-old Chua committed suicide in Changi Prison on 8 July 2020 while serving his life sentence.

2004

• 2 March 2004: 47-year-old oil-rig purchasing officer Esther Ang Imm Suan was strangled to death by her two Indonesian maids, 15-year-old Siti Aminah and 18-year-old Juminem, who were both subjected to harsh scoldings by Ang for not working properly, and it drove them to killing Ang. Both maids were charged with murder, but eventually the trial court found them guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder after the psychiatric evidence proven that both maids suffered from diminished responsibility due to depression at the time of the crime. Juminem was sentenced to life imprisonment while Siti was given a jail term of ten years on 5 September 2005.
• 2 April 2004: 44-year-old Chia Teck Leng was sentenced to 42 years in jail by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang after swindling four foreign banks out of S$117 million from 1999 to 2003 using his position as the financial manager of Asia Pacific Breweries. Chia's sentence of 42 years' imprisonment was the longest sentence ever meted out for a commercial crime in Singapore, surpassing that of Teo Cheng Kiat in 2000, who was sentenced to 24 years' imprisonment for embezzling approximately S$35 million from Singapore Airlines for 13 years before his arrest in January 2000.
• 2 April 2004: 44-year-old Lim Poh Lye and his two accomplices attempted to rob 56-year-old scrap car dealer Bock Thuan Thong and killed him when the situation escalated unexpectedly after he tried to escape. Bock's body was then abandoned in a car at Boon Keng. An autopsy revealed that Bock had sustained seven stab wounds on his thighs, of which two were fatal. Two days later, Lim surrendered himself to the police. About ten weeks later, one of Lim's two accomplices, 36-year-old Tony Koh Zhan Quan, who had fled to Malaysia, surrendered himself to the Royal Malaysia Police and was extradited to Singapore. Both Lim and Koh were charged with murder, while their third accomplice and the mastermind of the robbery, 43-year-old Ng Kim Soon, has gone on the run since then. On 24 January 2005, High Court judge Choo Han Teck reduced the murder charges to robbery with hurt and convicted both men of the reduced charges. Lim, the one who stabbed Bock, was sentenced to 20 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane, while Koh was sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and 20 strokes of the cane. However, after the prosecution appeal, both men were found guilty of murder on 15 July 2005 and sentenced to death by the Court of Appeal. The two men were hanged on 28 April 2006. As of July 2021, Ng is still at large.
• 17 May 2004: 43-year-old G. Krishnasamy Naidu hacked his wife, 39-year-old Chitrabathy d/o Narayanasamy, to death with a chopper in front of several witnesses at his wife's workplace in Tuas. At the time, Krishnasamy was out on bail after stabbing his wife twice with a knife on 8 April 2004. Nine hours after killing his wife, Krishnasamy surrendered himself to the police and was charged with murder. At the trial, it was revealed that Chitra had been involved in several extramarital affairs over her 20-year marriage with Krishnasamy. It was only in 2004 that Krishnasamy suspected Chitra of having an affair again and caused grievous hurt to her in front of their two teenage children. On 17 May 2004, he came to see Chitra at her workplace under the pretext of bringing her divorce papers to sign, and killed her once she turned her back on him. Krishnasamy's defence counsel, led by lawyer Peter Keith Fernando, consulted two psychiatrists – George Joseph Fernandez and Stephen Phang Boon Chai – and they testified in court that Krishnasamy was suffering from a mental condition known as morbid jealousy, which made him qualify for diminished responsibility when he committed the crime. The prosecution's psychiatrist, however, said that Krishnasamy was not suffering from any abnormality of mind during the killing. On 26 April 2006, High Court judge Woo Bih Li accepted that Krishnasamy was indeed suffering from morbid jealousy before, during and after the crime. However, the judge felt that Krishnasamy failed to substantiate his defence of diminished responsibility as he was still capable of making precise decisions and clear judgments at the time of the offence despite his mental illness. Thus, the judge found Krishnasamy guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. Krishnasamy later won his appeal against his conviction and sentence as the Court of Appeal accepted that he was indeed suffering from an abnormality of mind when he killed Chitra. The court also cited that even some people suffering from diminished responsibility are still fully capable of making clear judgments. As such, Krishnasamy was found guilty of a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, and sentenced to life imprisonment.
• 1 June 2004: 37-year-old Chong Keng Chye was sentenced to 20 years' preventive detention and nine strokes of the cane for severely abusing a seven-year-old boy named Andy Ang Wei Jie to death in 1999, as well as for several cheating offences. He also manipulated the boy's mother – his 40-year-old girlfriend Sung Peck Imm – to assist him in abusing the boy for several months until the boy's death on 3 June 1999. He even told the boy's mother to make false statements to the police about her son's death. The names of Ang and his mother were not reported in later news reports during the course of the trial to protect the identity of Ang's two sisters. Over the next four years, Chong and Ang's mother cheated six people of S$284,000. When they were arrested in August 2003 for cheating, the police discovered that they were responsible for the boy's death as well. Both Chong and Sung were initially charged with murder and abetment of murder respectively. The latter was eventually convicted of cheating and abetting Chong to abuse her son and two daughters. On 11 May 2004, Sung was sentenced to four years and seven months' imprisonment in view of her low IQ of 80, which made her vulnerable to being manipulated by Chong to abuse her children. During sentencing, district judge Kow Keng Siong described Chong, who had been in and out of jail since he was a teenager, as an individual with a "sadistic and violent streak" and "a clear disregard for the authority and law", which warranted a lengthy jail term for the protection of society. The judge also expressed his concern over Chong's strong propensity to re-offend and his lack of remorse over his crimes.
• 7 October 2004: Four-year-old Sindee Neo was abducted from her home and thrown off from her flat at Telok Blangah, causing her to sustain fatal head injuries that led to her death five days later. Chee Cheong Hin Constance, a former Singapore Airlines stewardess and the lover of Neo's father, was initially charged with abduction and murder. However, her murder charge was later reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder after she was found suffering from schizophrenia. In January 2006, a 37-year-old Chee was found guilty of both charges of abducting Neo and causing her death. On 7 April 2006, High Court judge V. K. Rajah sentenced her to a total of 13 years' imprisonment – 10 years for killing Neo and three years for the abduction.
• 10 October 2004: Eight-year-old Huang Na was found dead and stuffed inside a box at Telok Blangah Hill Park. Took Leng How, a Malaysian who was an acquaintance of Huang's mother, was arrested and charged with the murder of Huang Na. On 27 August 2005, High Court judge Lai Kew Chai found Took guilty and sentenced him to death. A 24-year-old Took was hanged on 3 November 2006 after failing to overturn his conviction at the Court of Appeal and after President S. R. Nathan rejected his plea for clemency.
• November 2004: Nigerian citizen Iwuchukwu Amara Tochi was arrested at Changi Airport for carrying 100 capsules containing heroin. On 22 December 2005, High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu found Tochi guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced him to death. Tochi was eventually hanged on 26 January 2007 after failing to overturn his conviction at the Court of Appeal and after President S. R. Nathan rejected his plea for clemency.

2005

• 6 May 2005: 29-year-old Muhammad bin Kadar stabbed 69-year-old Tham Weng Kuen more than 110 times during a robbery in her flat in Boon Lay and caused her to die. When he was arrested for the murder, Muhammad implicated his 37-year-old brother, Ismil bin Kadar, as an accomplice and claimed that Ismil was the one who killed Tham when he ransacked the flat. Muhammad later retracted his statement and claimed that his brother was innocent and that he was the only one involved in the robbery. Ismil, who was arrested and promptly charged with murder together with Muhammad, insisted his innocence throughout the trial and denied making any confessions about his alleged involvement in the crime. Nevertheless, after a trial lasting 94 days from 2006 to 2008, the brothers were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by the High Court. Both of them appealed against their sentences and the Court of Appeal decided that Ismil was not involved in the robbery and murder, so on 6 July 2011 the court acquitted Ismil of murder and dismissed Muhammad's appeal. When changes to the law took effect in 2013, Muhammad applied for re-sentencing but the Court of Appeal rejected on the grounds that he had clearly intended to cause death to the victim when he inflicted more than 110 stab wounds on her. On 17 April 2015, after losing his appeal for presidential clemency, a 39-year-old Muhammad was hanged in Changi Prison.
• 15–16 June 2005: In a case known as the Kallang River body parts murder, 50-year-old Leong Siew Chor murdered his lover, 22-year-old Chinese national Liu Hong Mei, and dismembered her body into seven parts. He dumped her body parts at multiple places across Singapore, including the Kallang River. He also stole her credit card and withdrew S$2,000 from her bank account after having sex with her. He was arrested on 17 June 2005. On 19 May 2006, High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang found Leong guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. Leong was hanged on 30 November 2007 after President S. R. Nathan rejected his plea for clemency.
• 7 September 2005: Known as the Orchard Road body parts murder, 29-year-old Filipino domestic helper Guen Garlejo Aguilar killed her friend, 26-year-old Jane Parangan La Puebla, who was also working as a domestic helper in Singapore. On 7 September 2005, the two women had gotten into a quarrel over a S$2,000 debt which La Puebla owed Aguilar. The quarrel soon became a fight, which ended with Aguilar smothering and strangling La Puebla to death in the condominium at Serangoon where Aguilar worked. Aguilar hid La Puebla's body inside a luggage bag in her room – unknown to her employers. On 9 September 2005, after her employers had gone to work, Aguilar purchased various items and used them to dismember La Puebla's body and clean up the scene. She then placed the body parts in separate bags before disposing of them at Orchard Road and near MacRitchie Reservoir. After the body parts were discovered, the police solved the case within the next 12 hours and arrested Aguilar. Before Aguilar's trial started in May 2006, the charges against her were reduced to manslaughter after her defence lawyers argued that she suffered from depression and that La Puebla's death had resulted from a grave and sudden provocation. Aguilar pleaded guilty and was sentenced by High Court judge V. K. Rajah to ten years' imprisonment.
• 13 September 2005: 27-year-old Lim Ah Liang, a male prostitute stabbed and hammered his 37-year-old lover Ho Kien Leong to death in Ho's flat at Indus Road. Lim had been working as a freelance masseur for Ho, who operated a massage business, while Lim paid Ho a commission for client referrals. Sometime in June 2005, Ho demanded a higher commission, which made Lim quit. In an attempt to renegotiate, the two met in Ho's flat on 13 September 2005. There, Ho accused Lim of working for another agent, which Lim denied. Ho proceeded to take a knife from the kitchen to threaten Lim. A struggle for the knife ensued, and Lim eventually gained the upper hand and stabbed Ho a total of 13 times, killing him. Lim fled to Malaysia, leaving Ho's body in the flat until nine days later when neighbours called the police. Lim was initially charged with murder but pled guilty to culpable homicide due to dysthymia, a life-long depressive disorder, that severely impaired his mental faculties at the time of the killing. The trial judge, V. K. Rajah, having considered Lim's circumstances, decided to sentence Lim to life imprisonment.
• 19 October 2005: At her flat in Chai Chee, 75-year-old Wee Keng Wah had caught her Indonesian maid Barokah (aged 26 in 2005) sneaking out to meet her boyfriend. The confrontation escalated into an argument and later a fight, which led to Barokah knocking Wee unconscious before throwing her off the bedroom window of Wee's ninth-floor unit, causing Wee to die from the fall. Barokah was charged with murder, but after she was found suffering from both depression and a dependent personality disorder, Barokah's murder charge was reduced on the grounds of diminished responsibility. On 26 November 2007, Barokah pleaded guilty to the reduced charge and was sentenced to life imprisonment. Although Barokah was granted a re-trial in 2008, the High Court decided to reinstate her life sentence in February 2009, after finding it the only appropriate sentence for Barokah on behalf of her psychiatric condition and cold-blooded nature of the killing, and the second appeal from Barokah was dismissed by the Court of Appeal in August 2009.
• 25 October 2005: 37-year-old Lim Ah Seng murdered his abusive wife Riana Agustina, whom he married in 1998. Before the murder, he was enduring frequent beatings and psychological abuse by his wife. As a result of one of these beatings, Lim became deaf in one ear. Their two children were also beaten by Riana. These problems arose from an incident in 2003 when Riana aborted their child, which led to difficulties in their marriage. On the night of the murder, after they had sex, Riana threatened to report Lim for rape and attacked him repeatedly, threatening to kill him. This resulted in Lim killing her. Lim was then arrested by the police for murder. Psychiatric assessments reveal that Lim Ah Seng was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), which caused him abnormality of mind during the time of the killing. The charge was amended to one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder under section 304(b) of the Penal Code and Lim was convicted of the charge after pleading guilty to it. On 7 July 2006, even though the prosecution pressed for a sentence of 4.5 years' imprisonment, Judicial Commissioner (JC) Sundaresh Menon (who would later on become Chief Justice of Singapore) sentenced Lim to 2.5 years' imprisonment, with effect from the date of his arrest, in view of several mitigating factors in favour of Lim in the case. The prosecution later filed an appeal against the sentence, arguing that it was too short. The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal and ordered the case to be remitted back to the original trial judge for re-sentencing. On 26 March 2007, despite the arguments of the prosecution for a longer jail term, JC Menon once again sentenced Lim Ah Seng to serve the original sentence of 2.5 years' imprisonment with effect from the date of his arrest, explaining that the mitigating factors of the case, which he took into consideration during the original sentencing, were mitigating enough to warrant a lenient sentence for Lim in his new judgement.
• 2 December 2005: In front of his 13-year-old nephew, 44-year-old condominium caretaker Mohammad Zam Abdul Rashid attacked and severely assaulted his 38-year-old wife Ramona Johari inside their rented Dover Road flat. Ramona died from the assault two days later in hospital, and Mohammad Zam was charged with murder. It was revealed that Mohammad Zam was suffering from frontal lobe syndrome, a type of personality disorder that affected one's behavioural patterns, induced by a head injury that he suffered in 1987 after falling down a flight of stairs. The trial court found Mohammad Zam to be a lingering menace to society and his condition required medication on a lifelong basis, and taking note of the sheer and relentless brutality exhibited by Mohammad Zam during the attack, the High Court sentenced Mohammad Zam to life imprisonment in September 2006, and the Court of Appeal later rejected Mohammad Zam's appeal against his life sentence in January 2007.
• 24 December 2005: On the night before Christmas, a group of four Malaysians National - 20-year-old Hamir Bin Hasim, 21-year-old Kamal Bin Kupli, 25-year-old Abdul Malik Bin Usman and 17-year-old Benedict Inyang Anak Igai - decided to commit robbery. Upon spotting 41-year-old Myanmar national Thein Naing walking nearby Upper Boon Keng Road, Benedict acted as lookout at the nearby area while the remaining three went to attack Thein and assaulted him by stabbing him and kicking him in the head. Thein died due to the knife wounds and severe head injuries, and the gang took away his wallet and cash. A passer-by later discovered Thein's corpse and contacted the police, who later investigated and arrested all the four Malaysians, who had also committed a few more robberies prior to Thein's murder and their arrests. Benedict was later sentenced to five years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane for robbery with hurt, while the remaining three men - Hamir, Kamal and Abdul Malik - were convicted of murder and sentenced to death in June 2007. All three condemned lost their appeals in February 2008, and they were eventually hanged in September 2008.

2006

• 15 February 2006: 39-year-old gangster Tan Chor Jin, nicknamed "One-eyed Dragon" because he was blind in his right eye, forcefully entered the apartment of 41-year-old nightclub owner Lim Hock Soon. He robbed Lim and his family of their valuables before shooting Lim to death. After that, he fled Singapore with help from his accomplice, Ho Yueh Keong. He was nabbed by the Royal Malaysia Police ten days later at a hotel in Kuala Lumpur before he was extradited to Singapore on 1 March 2006. Initially charged with murder, his charge was amended to one of an unlawful discharge of a firearm. During the trial, Tan chose to be unrepresented by legal counsel. In his defence, he claimed that Lim was about to hit him with a chair and thus he shot Lim in self-defence. However, his defence fell flat when the prosecution noted that Lim was tied up and could not have lifted the chair. On 22 May 2007, High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang found Tan guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. Tan was eventually hanged on 9 January 2009 after the Court of Appeal dismissed his appeal on 30 January 2008. Lim Choon Chwee, the driver who drove Tan to Lim's apartment, was given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for abetting the murder and sentenced to six months imprisonment for failing to report the robbery. Ho, who was on the run for nine years before he was arrested and extradited back to Singapore, was charged on 15 July 2015 for harbouring a fugitive and pleaded guilty on 8 August 2016. Two days later, he was sentenced to a 20-month jail term.
• 1 March 2006: Nurasyura binte Mohamed Fauzi, a two-year-old girl better known as Nonoi, went missing in early 2006. There was a highly publicised search for Nonoi, in which the police and various strangers joined her family in searching for her. Three days later, 29-year-old Mohammed Ali bin Johari, Nonoi's stepfather, tearfully confessed to his wife and mother-in-law that Nonoi was dead and he had accidentally drowned her in water while trying to get her to stop crying. Mohammed Ali surrendered himself to the police and led them to the place where he disposed Nonoi's body. The autopsy results found sexual injuries on Nonoi's body, implying that Mohammed Ali had raped her before the alleged murder. Throughout the trial, Mohammed Ali repeatedly denied raping Nonoi and maintained that her death was accidental. On 31 August 2007, High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu found a 31-year-old Mohammed Ali guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. Mohammed Ali later lost his appeal and was hanged on 19 December 2008.
• 25 April 2006: At a playground in Ang Mo Kio, 26-year-old bouncer Jagagevan Jayaram was stabbed 11 times by three men, including his brother-in-law, and he died as a result. The trio - Melvin Mathenkumar Segaram, Sadayan Ajmeershah and Arull Wanan Thangarasu - were charged with murder after they gave themselves up to the police. The incident resulted from a dispute between one of Sadayan's friends and Jagagevan's sister, which was where both men's paths were crossed when they got involved in it. This unsettled dispute would lead to an incident where Jagagevan and his friends assaulted Sadayan on that fateful day of 25 April and returned with a friend later that night to confront Sadayan (who was this time accompanied by two friends arriving to bring him to hospital) again. This led to a fight between both sides and Sadayan killing Jagagevan during the fight. Both Melvin and Arull, who pleaded guilty to reduced charges of rioting, were each sentenced to four years' imprisonment and eight strokes of the cane in April 2007. Sadayan pleaded guilty to culpable homicide not amounting to murder (or manslaughter) and sentenced to nine years in jail and 12 strokes of the cane in August 2007.
• 30 May 2006: In a robbery masterminded by their two other accomplices, a group of three men – 22-year-old Daniel Vijay s/o Katherasan, 23-year-old Christopher Samson s/o Anpalagan, and 47-year-old Nakamuthu Balakrishnan – robbed 46-year-old lorry driver Wan Cheon Kem of 2,700 mobile phones, which were worth S$1.3 million. During the robbery at Changi Coast Road, Balakrishnan used a baseball bat to bash Wan at least 15 times. Wan died in hospital six days later. The three men, as well as the two masterminds – 36-year-old Ragu a/l Ramajayam and 38-year-old Arsan s/o Krishnasamy Govindarajoo – were all arrested. Among the stolen 2,700 mobile phones, only 2,158 were recovered. Ragu and Arsan were charged with abetting armed robbery with hurt while the three men – Daniel, Christopher and Balakrishnan – were charged with murder. Ragu, who knew of Wan's assignment of delivering the mobile phones and informed the other four men to plan the robbery, pleaded guilty to his role in the robbery and sentenced to six years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane on 24 April 2007. Later, he successfully appealed for his sentence to be reduced to four years and six months in jail and six strokes of the cane. Arsan was convicted of abetment of armed robbery with hurt and a few other charges and sentenced to 16 years and six months' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. The three men who stood trial for murder – Daniel, Christopher and Balakrishnan – were all found guilty of murder and sentenced to death by High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang on 28 July 2008. Daniel and Christopher appealed against their sentences and the Court of Appeal convicted them of lesser charges of armed robbery with hurt on 3 September 2010. On 4 October 2010, Daniel and Christopher were each sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane. Balakrishnan was eventually hanged on 8 July 2011 after he declined to proceed with his appeal against the death sentence.
• 2 June 2006: 42-year-old lawyer David Rasif fled Singapore with S$11.3 million of his clients' money and has been on the run since then. In the days before his disappearance, he had made S$11 million worth of transfers around several locations and bought over S$2 million worth of jewellery. As at 2013, the sum of S$11.3 million was the largest amount of money misappropriated by a lawyer in Singapore. Over S$10 million of the S$11.3 million came from an American couple, George and Kaori Zage, who had engaged Rasif to complete a property transaction in May 2006. Over the subsequent years, the Commercial Affairs Department managed to recover S$7.4 million in the form of cash and gold bars from bank accounts in Singapore, Hong Kong and Vietnam. Rasif was also investigated for a property cashback scam which started in 2004. His two accomplices – property agent Goh Chong Liang and lawyer David Tan Hock Boon – were arrested and respectively sentenced to five years and five months' imprisonment in August 2007 and five years' imprisonment in November 2008. As of July 2021, Rasif is still on Interpol's wanted list. A 2013 news report revealed that one of Rasif's three daughters Jade won second place in a modelling contest and she became a celebrity since her contest participation.
• 18 June 2006: Inside her massage parlour in Ang Mo Kio, 29-year-old China-born peidu mama Yu Hongjin stabbed her 52-year-old Singaporean boyfriend Eu Lim Hoklai during an argument, and it led to her being stabbed by Eu in self-defense and she died as a result. Eu was arrested and charged with murder while he was hospitalized at Tan Tock Seng Hospital for his wounds. It was revealed during his trial in 2008 that Eu, who was married with three daughters, had an affair with Yu since 2005 and had wanted to break off with her on the date of the stabbing, after discovering that she had been going out with other men. Although Eu's defence was rejected and he was sentenced to hang in 2009 for the murder, he was eventually successful in his appeal, which allowed him to serve ten years' imprisonment for manslaughter instead.
• August 2006 – November 2007: Entrepreneur James Phang Wah, director of Sunshine Empire, had swindled S$190 million out of numerous people, including retirees and students. Phang had deployed a Ponzi scheme to commit his crimes, enticing his victims with "lifestyle packages" to get them into investing into the scheme. Phang's criminal activities, which lasted 15 months, only ended with his arrest in November 2007. Phang, who did not plead guilty to his crimes and never shown any remorse for his treachery, was sentenced to nine years' imprisonment and fined S$66,000 for criminal breach of trust in July 2010. His wife, Neo Kuon Huay, was fined S$60,000 and his accomplice, Hoo Choon Cheat, was jailed for seven years for their roles in Phang's criminal activities. On 20 December 2017, a 58-year-old Phang was released from prison. The next day, he faced charges of fraud which he committed in Malaysia.

2007

• 12 June 2007: 19-year-old Malaysian citizen Yong Vui Kong was arrested for transporting more than 47 grams of heroin from Malaysia to Singapore. He was found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death by the High Court in November 2008. He initially lost his appeal against the death sentence and failed in his plea for clemency to President S. R. Nathan. However, after changes to the law took effect in 2013, judges have the discretion to sentence drug traffickers who only act as couriers or having fulfilled any other conditions, to life imprisonment with or without caning instead of death. Yong was thus re-sentenced by High Court judge Choo Han Teck to life imprisonment and 15 strokes of the cane in November 2013. On 22 August 2014, Yong's lawyer, M Ravi, appealed against the sentence, arguing that caning was unconstitutional. On 4 March 2015, the three-judge Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal.
• 30 June 2007: 19-year-old Felicia Teo Wei Ling, a student at LASALLE College of the Arts, was last seen near a friend's flat in Marine Parade before she was reported missing on 3 July 2007. The case garnered significant media attention and searches were conducted locally and internationally to trace her whereabouts. In mid-2020, the case was transferred to the police's Criminal Investigation Department, which found that Teo had allegedly been killed by two of her schoolmates living near where she was last seen. One of them, 35-year-old Ahmad Danial bin Mohamed Rafa'ee, was arrested and charged with murder in December 2020. The other schoolmate, 32-year-old Ragil Putra Setia Sukmarahjana, was not in Singapore when Ahmad was arrested and has been at large since then. Ahmad's arrest also sparked renewed interest in Teo's case and other missing persons' cases. Subsequently, on 27 June 2022, Ahmad was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for Teo's alleged murder, but he served 26 months in prison for reduced charges of disposal of Teo's corpse, misappropriating Teo's belongings and falsifying his 2007 statements to the police. As of 2022, Ragil remains at large.
• 1 July 2007:
  • 16-year-old Muhammad Nasir bin Abdul Aziz was ordered by his lover, 24-year-old Aniza binte Essa, to murder her husband, 29-year-old Manap bin Sarlip. In the early morning of 1 July 2007, Nasir stabbed Manap nine times at Block 74 Whampoa Drive. Nasir and Aniza were arrested shortly later and charged with murder. Although Aniza initially faced the death penalty for abetting murder, the charge was eventually reduced to abetment of culpable homicide not amounting to murder because she had a mental condition at the time of the offence which allowed her to qualify for the defence of diminished responsibility. On 28 April 2008, High Court judge Chan Seng Onn sentenced Aniza to nine years' imprisonment. Nasir pleaded guilty to murder but since he was under 18 years of age when he committed the murder, he was spared the gallows and indefinitely detained under the President's Pleasure.
  • Known as the Stirling Road murder case, 38-year-old odd-job worker Tharema Vejayan Govindasamy murdered his 32-year-old ex-wife Smaelmeeral Abdul Aziz by flinging her off the 13th floor of a HDB block in Stirling Road, which caused her to die from multiple injuries from the fall itself. Tharema was on the run for two days before he surrendered and was charged with murder. Tharema was found guilty of murdering Smaelmeeral and sentenced to hang on 25 May 2009.
• 2 September 2007: 20-year-old National Serviceman Dave Teo Ming sparked a 20-hour-long nationwide manhunt when he went AWOL from Mandai Hill Camp with a SAR-21 assault rifle and eight 5.56 mm rounds. Investigations revealed that Teo went AWOL because he wanted to kill Crystal Liew, his girlfriend who broke up with him in April that same year, as well as five others whom he hated in his life. After his arrest, Teo faced multiple charges under the Arms Offences Act. Teo's fellow serviceman, Ong Boon Jun, who was with Teo when he had the weapons in his possession, was charged under the Arms Offences Act as well. At Teo's trial, it was revealed that Teo had an unhappy childhood and had experienced several tragedies in his life, including his mother abandoning him to his grandparents, parental abuse, and the death of his younger brother in a car accident in March 2001. These events caused Teo to suffer from depression, according to a report from the Institute of Mental Health. Teo had finally snapped after Liew broke up with him and that had driven him to commit the crime. On 9 July 2008, High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang convicted Teo of the charges he faced, and sentenced him to nine years and two months' imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane. During sentencing, the judge expressed his sympathy towards Teo for his unfortunate circumstances and advised him to turn over a new leaf while in prison. As for Ong, he was sentenced to six years and six months' jail and six strokes of the cane for consorting with a person in unlawful possession of a firearm.
• 20 October 2007: Inside a rental flat in Marsiling, Singapore, 45-year-old bus driver Ong Pang Siew strangled his 15-year-old China-born stepdaughter Pan Hui (alias Ong Pan Hui) after an argument. At the time of the incident, Ong was divorced from his wife (Pan's birth mother), with whom he also had one son. Ong was charged with murder, and although he stated he was suffering from diminished responsibility due to depression, Ong's defense was rejected and he was sentenced to death in March 2009. Subsequently, Ong's appeal was allowed by the Court of Appeal, which allowed Ong's conviction for murder to be reduced to manslaughter in November 2010, and following a re-sentencing trial at the High Court, his sentence was lowered from death to ten years’ imprisonment in May 2011.

2008

• 17 February 2008: Kho Jabing and Galing Anak Kujat, two Malaysians working in Singapore, robbed two Chinese nationals in Geylang. One of the victims, 40-year-old Cao Ruyin, was severely bludgeoned on the head by Kho. Cao died from his severe head injuries six days later. Kho and Galing were found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 2010 by the High Court. Following an appeal in 2011, Galing's conviction was reduced to robbery with hurt and his sentence was reduced to 18 years and six months' imprisonment and 19 strokes of the cane. Kho failed to escape the gallows when his appeal was rejected. After the Singapore government removed the mandatory death penalty in January 2013 for crimes of murder with no intention to kill, Kho's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane following an appeal and a re-trial in the High Court in August 2013. However, the prosecution appealed against the life sentence. In 2015, the five-judge Court of Appeal, by a landmark decision of three to two, sentenced Kho to death, as the majority three judges felt that Kho had demonstrated a blatant disregard for human life and had been vicious in the attack on Cao, which made it more appropriate to sentence Kho to death. Kho was eventually hanged in the afternoon of 20 May 2016 in Changi Prison after his appeal was dismissed earlier that morning. The Court of Appeal's landmark judgement in Kho's case was designated as the sentencing guidelines for murder with no intention to kill under the reformed death penalty laws and has had an effect on several other murder cases in Singapore.
• 27 February 2008: Jemaah Islamiyah terrorist Mas Selamat bin Kastari discreetly escaped from the now-defunct Whitley Road Detention Centre, sparking a nationwide manhunt. He managed to flee from Singapore to Malaysia via a handmade floating device on 3 March 2008 and eventually hid himself in Skudai for about a year before he was arrested by Malaysian police on 1 April 2009. He was repatriated to Singapore on 24 September 2010 and detained indefinitely under the Internal Security Act.
• 27 April 2008 – 10 June 2008: 47-year-old Bala Kuppusamy attacked and robbed seven women aged between 16 and 34 over a period of about two months. Among the seven victims, four were also raped by Bala. On 30 June 2008, the police arrested Bala, who was then charged with rape, robbery with hurt and aggravated molestation, among other charges. Bala had previously been convicted of rape twice in 1987 and 1993; he was sentenced to 11 years' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane in 1987, and 23 years' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane in 1993. On 4 March 2009, High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang sentenced a 48-year-old Bala to 42 years' imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane. Bala's jail term was the longest ever meted out to a sex offender in Singapore.
• 16 June 2008: 24-year-old Cheong Chun Yin, a native of Perak, Malaysia, was caught after he passed a bag filled with at least 2.7 kg of heroin to his 54-year-old acoomplice Pang Siew Fum. Both Cheong and Pang were found guilty of drug trafficking and sentenced to death by hanging in 2010, and also lost their appeals. After changes to the law in 2013, Cheong was certified as a mere drug courier and re-sentenced to life imprisonment with 15 strokes of the cane on 20 April 2015. Even though Pang was not a certified drug mule, her death sentence was also commuted to life imprisonment due to her suffering from depression at the time of her crime.
• 28 June 2008: At the Paya Lebar home of opposition politician Tan Lead Shake, his 25-year-old wife Wu Yun Yun (an immigrant from China) stabbed her husband's younger brother Tan Lead Sane (aged 33) to death. Tan's 35-year-old wife Huang Mei Zhe (also from China) was also knifed on the neck twice but survived, and Tan's mother was also injured. Wu was arrested seven hours after the crime and charged with murdering Tan and attempting to murder Huang. Wu was later found to be suffering from depression, and hence, her charges of murder and attempted murder were reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and attempted culpable homicide respectively in November 2008. Wu, who was represented by veteran lawyer Subhas Anandan, pleaded guilty in April 2009, and six months later, Wu was sentenced to 16 years in jail by the trial judge Kan Ting Chiu on 17 November 2009.
• 7 July 2008: At a power substation near Ang Mo Kio West Garden, 22-year-old movement operator Pathip Selvan s/o Sugumaran murdered his 18-year-old girlfriend and kindergarten teacher Jeevitha d/o Panippan by stabbing her 15 times. Pathip fled to Malaysia before he surrendered himself, and he was charged with murder three days after killing Jeevitha. Before the murder, their relationship were deteriorating due to Jeevitha having gone out with many other men and Pathip's feelings of being cheated. It occurred when Jeevitha insulted Pathip, stating that her current lover performed better than Pathip when on bed with her, provoking Pathip who used a knife to stab her until she died. On 12 November 2010, Pathip, whose defence of grave and sudden provocation was rejected by the trial judge, was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. However, upon filing an appeal, the Court of Appeal found Pathip not guilty of murder, as they accepted that he was indeed being gravely provoked by Jeevitha's insults and it caused him to lose self-control and kill the victim. As a result, on 15 August 2012, Pathip's death sentence was set aside, and he was instead sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment for a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
• 3 September 2008: At a hotel in Geylang, 21-year-old Radika Devi Thayagarajah, a Sri Lankan prostitute who was pregnant for seven months, was strangled to death by her 19-year-old client and Indian national Madhuri Jaya Chandra Reddy during an argument after he asked to have sex a third time and Devi having demanded Madhuri to pay her more than he agreed to, which sparked the quarrel that led to Devi's death. Reddy stole the victim's phone and some other belongings, and disposed of the rest. Devi's body was hidden under the bed by Reddy, who continued using the hotel room with another prostitute to cover his tracks. Devi's body was found more than 30 hours after the murder, and the police spent 22 hours to crack the case and arrest Reddy at his dormitory in Ama Keng Road. Originally charged with murder, Reddy pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (manslaughter) and sentenced to 17 years in jail and 12 strokes of the cane by Judicial Commissioner Steven Chong.
• 19 September 2008: In a case known as the Yishun triple murders, 42-year-old Chinese national Wang Zhijian killed his 41-year-old lover Zhang Meng, 17-year-old Feng Jianyu (Zhang's daughter), and 36-year-old Yang Jie (Zhang's flatmate), in Zhang's flat in Yishun. He also attempted to kill Yang's 15-year-old daughter, who became the sole survivor of the incident. The next day, Wang was arrested and charged with three counts of murder. On 30 November 2012, High Court judge Chan Seng Onn sentenced Wang to death for the murder of Yang; Wang had successfully raised a defence of diminished responsibility for the other two murder charges. On 30 November 2014, during the cross-appeal between Wang and the prosecution, the Court of Appeal turned down Wang's appeal against the death sentence and allowed the prosecution's appeal, which found Wang guilty of all three murders. Wang was eventually hanged in Changi Prison.
• 20 October 2008: The highly decomposed body of 47-year-old Choo Xue Ying was found in Bukit Batok Nature Park. The police traced Choo's phone to 48-year-old Rosli Bin Yassin and his 35-year-old Indonesian girlfriend Jelly, and arrested them. Rosli eventually admitted to assaulting Choo during an argument in her car when they passed through Bukit Batok Nature Park and had abandoned her there after she fell unconscious, thinking that she was still alive. On 11 May 2012, Rosli, who had multiple previous convictions for theft, cheating, forgery and criminal breach of trust since 1991, was sentenced by High Court judge Woo Bih Li to 12 years' preventive detention for cheating and culpable homicide not amounting to murder. After the prosecution appealed, Rosli's sentence was increased to 20 years' preventive detention by the Court of Appeal in March 2013. Jelly, who was charged with cheating and overstaying, was sentenced to 36 months' imprisonment and fined S$3,000, and she was deported from Singapore upon her release from prison.

2009

• 11 April 2009: 29-year-old Chinese national Wang Wenfeng attempted to rob a taxi driver, 58-year-old Yuen Swee Hong, after flagging down the taxi and telling Yuen to drive him to a secluded spot in Sembawang. During their struggle, Wang stabbed Yuen and fatally wounded him before abandoning him in a nearby forested area. Wang then drove Yuen's taxi to a multi-storey carpark at Canberra Road and cleaned the bloodstains. After that, he called Yuen's wife, Chan Oi Lin, lying to her that he had kidnapped her husband and demanding a ransom. Chan and her elder child and only son, Yuen Zheng Wen, contacted the police, who arrested Wang on 13 April 2009. On 17 April 2009, Wang led the police to the location where he abandoned Yuen's body. In September 2011, High Court judge Lee Seiu Kin found Wang guilty of murder and sentenced him to death. When changes to the law took effect in January 2013, Wang applied for re-sentencing. In November 2013, he was re-sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane after he substantiated his defence that he had no intent to kill Yuen and only wanted to rob him. Although Wang's life sentence meant a term of imprisonment for the duration of his remaining lifespan, it still carries a possibility of release by parole after a minimum of twenty years in jail on account of his overall conduct in prison.
• 22 April 2009: 21-year-old Nagaenthran K. Dharmalingam was arrested for allegedly trafficking 42.72g of heroin in Singapore while entering Singapore from Malaysia at Woodlands Checkpoint with a bundle of heroin strapped to his thigh. Nagaenthran confessed to committing the crime, but he gave statements claiming that he was ordered to commit the crime out of duress by an alleged mastermind who assaulted him and threatened to kill his girlfriend, and also claimed he did so to get money to pay off his debts. Nagaenthran was convicted and sentenced to death in 2010, and later, when changes to the law took effect in January 2013, Nagaenthran applied for re-sentencing but he lost his appeals in 2019, and he was initially set to be executed on 10 November 2021. There were local and international calls to the government to not execute Nagaenthran based on his alleged intellectual disability. Due to Nagaenthran tested positive for COVID-19, he was not yet executed and he was given time to recover before his final appeal can proceed and it will be decided on 30 November 2021 if he can be executed. The court date is later postponed to January 2022. The appeal was finally heard on 1 March 2022, and it was dismissed on 29 March 2022. After which, Nagaenthran, then 34 years old, was eventually hanged on 27 April 2022.

See also

• Capital punishment in Singapore
• Life imprisonment in Singapore
• List of major crimes in Singapore