Authors: Subhas Anandan
It is a myth that everyone who is acquitted is innocent. I personally know of many who have walked out of court as free men and women even when they were guilty of the charge.
One landmark case which gave me great satisfaction was that of Nadasan Chandra Secharan vs the Public Prosecutor. Nadasan was a mechanic who used to worship in the same temple that I attend. Sometimes he would go to the temple with his wife. On the occasions that I saw him there, we would exchange greetings. He was one of Lord Ayappan’s devotees who would go through a penance and fast every year for 40 days during the months of November and December. Devotees also go on a pilgrimage to Shabrimallai in South India, the historical abode of Lord Ayappan. Nadasan made the pilgrimage regularly.
Nadasan also used the grounds at the back of the temple to wash his Toyota Lite-Ace van or do repairs to it. I remember asking some of the temple employees why he was given the privilege of using the temple premises and facilities to clean his van. They assured me he was contributing to the temple and that the amount he put into the temple donation box covered all his expenses. I was also assured that he was a good man. So, it came as a shock when I learnt that he had been arrested for the murder of his ex-mistress, Ramipiram Kannickaisparry. Thirty-nine-year-old Ramipiram was separated from her husband at the time of her death and lived with her sister, a Madam Kasturi Bai. She was last seen alive by a colleague at 12.15 pm on the day of the murder at Apple Computer where she worked. Nadasan and she had parted ways some years back, but the parting was not amicable. I wondered why he was arrested.
Nadasan’s family appointed me as his lawyer. I found out from his wife that Nadasan had a long affair, which she knew about, with Ramipiram and that it was all over well before he was arrested. When I rang the Special Investigation Section to find out more, I was told Nadasan was being held for suspicion of murder of his ex-mistress. A few days later he was charged with her murder and I realised they were building a case against him.
The body was found by a jogger in Jalan Ulu Sembawang at the edge of undergrowth. In front of the body were tyre marks. Ramipiram was lying on her back with her left leg flexed over her right leg. She was dressed in a light purple Punjabi suit which was torn in some parts. Part of her brassiere was exposed and she was still wearing her watch on her left wrist. A forensic report showed that a van had run over her and she had 13 stab wounds on her face. The body was in a bad shape and there were teeth missing because of the impact. It was quite a brutal murder.
When I first interviewed Nadasan, he cried and said he was innocent. I asked him about Ramipiram’s background and what he was doing on that particular day because, based on the autopsy, the coroner and the pathologist had determined the time of the murder. I needed to know exactly where he was at that particular time. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t have an alibi. He was working as a mechanic at Seletar Country Club but was not there at the time of the murder. While he could account for some of the activities during his absence, he couldn’t do so for a crucial 30 to 40 minutes. According to Nadasan, he was on his way home to have lunch, which he often did as his flat was very near the golf club, but on that day his van broke down. It was an old van which often broke down. Nadasan said he spent some time at the side of the road cleaning the carburettor. He also said that it was drizzling which was why he took more time to fix it.
I was told by the forensics team that they had found a tooth belonging to the deceased stuck under a wooden panel at the bottom of Nadasan’s van. They surmised that this could only have happened if his van had driven over the victim’s head, knocking out her teeth. The prosecution also said they had evidence to show that the tyre marks found at the scene, especially those in front of the body, belonged to the tyres of Nadasan’s van. Circumstantially they had a very good case—a tooth had been found underneath Nadasan’s van, the tyre marks matched his van and Nadasan couldn’t explain where he was at the time of the murder.
Unfortunately, by the time they found the tooth, the body was on its way to the crematorium. The police arrived too late and the body had been cremated. The only recourse was a DNA test to ascertain if the tooth belonged to the victim. Subsequently, the tooth was sent to Scotland Yard; at that time, Singapore’s forensic team were not able to conduct DNA tests. Test results showed that the tooth was indeed Ramipiram’s.
Next came a report about the tyre marks. Drawn up by an expert in New Zealand engaged by the prosecution, it stated that the tyre marks were caused by the tyres of Nadasan’s van. The case was getting worse for my client. I decided to hold a meeting with Nadasan’s family. Together with my capable assisting counsel, Amolat Singh, I told them that we needed to get our own experts in and asked whether they could afford the fees. They assured us they could. So I engaged the help of a DNA expert from Sydney, Dr Malcolm MacDonald. Through him, I got an expert to analyse the tyre marks. He was also prepared to give evidence contrary to that of the prosecution’s New Zealand expert. So I had two experts from Sydney while the prosecution had one from Scotland Yard and one from New Zealand. The trial also saw a few local experts, like the forensic pathologist, and two others from the Department of Scientific Services.
The case started before Justice Lai Kew Chai. The deputy public prosecutor was Ong Hian Sun, who is currently director of the Commercial Affairs Department in Singapore. He was one of 10 scholar engineers who were offered scholarships in law because there was a shortage of good lawyers, according to the government. They were promised quick promotion, a promise that was kept. When Ong graduated, he was attached to the Attorney-General’s Chambers. I didn’t have any dealings with him before and we were polite to each other. In the course of my conversations with him, I found him to be a deadly serious person, devoid of any humour.
When I told him that lawyers at the Bar were referring to Nadasan’s case as ‘the toothless case’, he got annoyed and retorted, “What do you mean by ‘toothless case’? I’ll make sure your client gets convicted.”
“Hey, come on, don’t be so serious. It’s just a joke, you know,” I told him.
He smiled in relief. “Oh, it’s just a joke, is it?” I knew then that I had better not joke with this guy as he was far too serious.
The trial progressed. Our experts gave us tutorials to help us brush up on our knowledge of DNA. We also learnt how to cross-examine the prosecution’s DNA expert from Scotland Yard. This expert was prim and proper and gave evidence as though she was talking to lesser human beings, presumably because she believed her knowledge in the area to be superior. I had a lot of fun questioning her and played up my Indian accent just to irritate her. I knew she was having difficulty understanding me. I cross-examined her at length and finally managed to get her admission that her own laboratory did not follow established protocol. I drew from her many admissions that were not very complimentary to her and her laboratory. I ended the cross-examination by telling her “… and you call yourself an expert”. Obviously, she didn’t like the way I put it. I must say Justice Lai gave me a lot of leeway.
The prosecution then called its tyre expert. The young New Zealander admitted that his final conclusions were done in Singapore after he had seen the tyre marks and other evidence related to it. When it was my turn to cross-examine him, I put it to him that his preliminary opinion that the same tyres caused the tyre marks was mere speculation. He did not respond and kept quiet. He also remained silent when I asked if he just wanted a free trip to Singapore. I remember Justice Lai asking me to go slow on that.
The prosecution finally finished presenting their witnesses and it was now the defence’s turn. I asked the judge to make an exception and to allow me to call my experts first before calling in the accused because the longer the experts stayed in Singapore, the greater the expenses I had to incur. It is the usual procedure in criminal cases that the accused takes the stand before the witnesses. Justice Lai consented because the two witnesses whom I wanted to call were expert witnesses and I had cited cases where there was a precedent. The prosecution made no objection.
My first witness was Dr MacDonald, the expert on DNA. He gave his evidence and explained that the evidence of the prosecution experts could not be accepted because the method used was wrong and thus the finding could be wrong. He said that the experts had ignored important issues and gave his reasons. He was cross-examined extensively by the deputy public prosecutor, with the prodding and prompting of his own expert who was sitting beside him. Next, my other expert on tyres took the stand. He explained why the prosecution expert’s findings were not reliable. He was also cross-examined extensively.
Subsequently, Nadasan gave evidence. He said he had nothing to do with the murder and didn’t know how the tooth came to be impaled on his van. Apparently, according to Ramipiram’s husband and son, she would open beer bottles with her teeth. Nadasan said that they used to rendezvous in the van and were sometimes intimate and would share a beer underneath the van. It was possible that she could have cracked her tooth on one of those occasions.
The prosecution also produced an expert witness to say that it would not take 30 to 40 minutes to repair the carburettor of the van, as Nadasan had claimed. Under cross-examination, that testimony was shredded to pieces because it was obvious the witness did not know much about Nadasan’s old van. Nadasan explained why his van would start and stall over and over again.
When the trial ended, we handed in written submissions. Despite our efforts, Justice Lai convicted my client and sentenced him to death. There was much wailing and crying in court. The judge called the DPP, Amolat Singh and me into his chambers, and we remained there until the crowd was cleared by the police. Only then did he allow the DPP to leave through the back of the court. I was very disappointed with the judgment. I felt that Justice Lai always dealt more harshly with people who commit adultery. I also felt that as a church elder, and because of his personal convictions, he tended to take issues other than the law into consideration. Of course, I filed the Notice of Appeal.
I should also share that some gold items were found in the van too. The prosecution said they belonged to the murdered woman but did not provide any expert evidence to back up their claim. Nadasan explained that he hired out his van for transporting guests during weddings and the gold items could have been accidentally dropped by them. Since there was no proof to connect the gold items worn by the deceased with the items found in the van, the evidence was referred to as neutral evidence. I remember Justice Lai saying that his father was a goldsmith and he knew a little about gold and had his opinion about things.
Anyway after we had filed our Notice of Appeal, Justice Lai wrote his Grounds of Decision explaining why he convicted my client. When I read the Grounds of Decision, I found the judgment to be very weak and one that did not reflect what actually happened in the trial. It was a ‘wishy-washy’ sort of judgment with the usual ‘mumbo-jumbo’ when you want to convict somebody, stating nothing much other than that he accepted the evidence of the prosecution’s forensic experts and did not believe my client.
When it was time for the appeal, the family had no more money. They had spent it all on the experts. I got myself assigned by the Supreme Court registrar and did the appeal as an assigned counsel.
Together with Amolat Singh, we argued before the Court of Appeal comprising Chief Justice Yong Pung How, and Justices of Appeal M Karthigesu and L P Thean. We put forward our case and argued why Justice Lai had erred in convicting and why he should not have accepted the forensic evidence submitted by the prosecution. Of course, the DPP fought back aggressively. In one instance, when arguing about the tooth in the van, Justice Thean retorted: “So what if the tooth was found? Does that mean that he killed her? There was an explanation given, wasn’t there? Why don’t you look at the explanation?” He cut the DPP short on that. I was a bit surprised. I think he found Justice Lai’s judgment weak and the arguments of the DPP even weaker. The judgment of the Court of Appeal was reserved.
A month or two later, judgment was delivered and the Court of Appeal unanimously allowed the appeal. They squashed the death sentence and ordered Nadasan to be freed. He cried loudly when he heard the result. When I went to see him in the underground cell at the Supreme Court, he was still wailing. I shouted at him to stop and the wardens told me that they were tears of joy. I said, “Even with tears of joy, there’s a limit.” I told him to shut up and listen to what I had to say.
They took him back to Changi Prison and returned his belongings to him. That evening he was released. He made headlines in all the newspapers and on TV. Winning the appeal gave both Amolat Singh and I great satisfaction. It’s very seldom that you get a conviction on a capital case squashed in the Court of Appeal. The system very seldom allows such things to happen. So we had good reason to celebrate.
One of the things I must say that struck me as funny was the extent to which an accused would go to impress a judge. Nadasan, who was a staunch Hindu, somehow learnt that Justice Lai was a Christian and a church elder. After a couple of days of hearings in court, Nadasan started carrying a Bible. The interpreter who had earlier thought that Nadasan was a Hindu informed me that Nadasan now was carrying a Bible. I said, “Never mind, let him carry whatever he wants.” I did not question Nadasan’s decision to carry the Bible. However, when the time came for him to give evidence, he told the interpreter that he wanted to swear on his own copy of the Bible. I went towards him and told him: “You can be a Christian, you can be a Buddhist, I don’t care what you are. But if you want to swear on the Bible, you take the oath on the court’s Bible. Why the hell do you want to use your own Bible? What are you trying to prove?” He felt a little embarrassed. I demanded that he not make an issue out of this. He swore on the court’s Bible. I knew that it was just a ploy to impress upon the judge that he was a good man. Still, Nadasan was promptly convicted and taken to the condemned cell. The first letter he wrote from the cell was to ask me to do the appeal because he was not guilty. At the top of that letter, he had written “
Om Shakti
”. So, he had forgotten about the Bible. Since he was now convicted, he had chosen to revert back to Hinduism. These are some of the things that accused persons sometimes do when they are under pressure or in a depressed state or if they want to impress somebody in the hope that it will help their case