Authors: Subhas Anandan
When Sunil and I met One-eyed Dragon, we were not able to shake his hand as we were separated from him by a security glass panel, but we exchanged nods by way of greeting. He thanked me for accepting his case and told me that he couldn’t speak English very well but could speak a little Malay. I assured him that it was not a problem as Sunil could speak fluent Mandarin having taken the language in school. He was very surprised and glad he could express himself fully to Sunil. They started to talk and I intervened at times as I could understand a smattering of Mandarin.
The meeting was more to introduce ourselves and to assure him that we would be doing the best we could for him. At that stage, we did not have the Grounds of Decision and the Notes of Evidence. When we had all the documents ready and had gone through them, we would return to visit him. We asked him why he had shot Lim and he gave us his account of the incident. He also told us about how unfair he thought the system was and how the judge had not been fair to him. He felt that from the moment he was caught, he was not going to get a fair trial. I told him through Sunil that this was not true as we really do give everyone a fair trial under our system. It may appear to some as being unfair but the fact is that trials in Singapore follow the letter of the law.
When the Notes of Evidence and the Grounds of Decision were made available to us, we found that the evidence against One-eyed Dragon was overwhelming as the eyewitnesses were quite sure of what they had seen. From what we gathered from the Notes of Evidence, the prosecution witnesses, including the driver who had taken One-eyed Dragon to Lim’s flat, were all reliable witnesses. However, we were disturbed by the fact that One-eyed Dragon had been denied a lawyer to help him with his final submission. We thought it was unconstitutional and as far as we were concerned, he had not been given a fair trial as his request for a counsel was not acceded to by the judge. We put as our first grounds of appeal: denial of a fair trial.
Another grounds of appeal we put forward concerned the judge’s interpretation of the evidence given by the maid. Justice Tay had refused to visit the scene of the crime to verify One-eyed Dragon’s statement but had chosen instead to rely on photographs and the maid’s evidence. According to One-eyed Dragon, the maid was in the bedroom and could not see what was going on. The photographs could not show that the maid was lying. But the judge had refused his request to visit the crime scene, which we thought was a rather poor decision on his part. He should have gone to the scene to confirm the maid’s evidence.
Why couldn’t he when other judges have done so, like Justice V K Rajah, in the case of Constance Chee. According to Justice Rajah, going to the scene had helped him visualise what could really have happened. After observing the scene of the offence, he had asked the prosecution to create a mock HDB balcony so that the witnesses could enact the incident clearly. In another trial, Justice Woo Bih Li had gone to the crime scene to try and ascertain the truth. There have been occasions when judges felt it necessary to inspect the murder scene. It costs them nothing but One-eyed Dragon’s judge decided not to which we thought was unfair.
Still, we knew deep inside that all these facts were not going to hold any weight. The only strong argument that we had was the fact that One-eyed Dragon had not been given a fair trial when he was denied counsel. I started the argument in the Court of Appeal before Justices of Appeal Andrew Pang, V K Rajah and Tan Lee Meng. It was a very good hearing. Although they complimented me on my arguments, they were not prepared to accept the fact that One-eyed Dragon had been denied a fair trial. In fact, they asked: “What could a counsel do if he was given counsel at that stage?” I argued that a counsel could have helped him sum up his case and given him pointers. That would have helped him in his closing submission which could have affected the verdict. Both Justices Pang and Rajah said: “Okay, you’re the counsel now. Tell us what you could have said to help him in the lower court.”
I replied: “If you ask me now, to be honest, I will not be able to, but the fact is that some other lawyer could have been able to put forward some arguments that may have helped him.”
Justice Andrew Pang said: “Well, Mr Anandan, you are one of the most capable lawyers of the Criminal Bar and if you say that there is nothing much that can be said, then I think that’s the end of the matter.” He thanked me for being candid.
I lost the appeal and I think the Court of Appeal took the practical way out. They looked at the case and decided that there was so much evidence against One-eyed Dragon that it didn’t matter. I think they thought it would be a waste of time to have a new trial because the evidence was not going to change much and there was enough to find One-eyed Dragon guilty. I suppose they were entitled to do that, but to me a re-trial would have been fair.
Before you give the supreme punishment to an accused person, namely the death sentence, I think you should give him every opportunity to have a different verdict. We live in a society where our judicial system is such that every man—no matter what his offence is, even if it is the most heinous offence under the law—should be given every opportunity possible to defend himself before being convicted and punished under the law. Only then can we say with a clear conscience when a man is hanged, that everything possible has been done for him and the law must take its course.
I first met Ah Long San in 1976 when we both were inmates at Queenstown Remand Prison. He was detained for various criminal activities. He was just an ordinary prisoner—that is, he was not considered a special prisoner by the other inmates as I was. In November that year, I was released from remand and went back to practise law. A few years later, I assisted my future mother-in-law in the sale of her land in Jalan Tua Kong, off Upper East Coast Road, to a group of my friends who were developing the land to build units of terrace and semi-detached houses. One day, Ah Long San walked into my office with a property agent to enquire about buying one of the semi-detached units. When the property agent tried to introduce us, we both started to laugh. The agent didn’t know that we knew each other from our prison days and was completely puzzled.
I explained the contract to Ah Long San and told him that he had to pay a 10 per cent deposit on the selling price of $800,000. He simply took out from his pocket a wad of cash and gave me the full sum of $800,000. I was a little shocked at the amount of money in front of me. I told him that he did not have to pay the whole purchase price immediately and doing so would only attract the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore. He was not perturbed and asked me whether I wanted to keep the money for him. I politely declined. When the sale was completed, he gave a cashier’s order and took possession of the keys. He told me that he was buying the house for his mother. I believe his mother still lives there.
I would see Ah Long San occasionally in nightclubs, especially at the Lido Palace, a well-known expensive nightclub located on Havelock Road. He was a regular patron in most nightclubs. Every
mama-san
welcomed him as a customer because he was a big tipper. Even the valets would rush to park his car as he was known to tip them $50 every time. On one occasion, he tipped a valet $500 for parking his car.
Ah Long San was known as Singapore’s No. 1 loan shark. His empire was vast, spread across Singapore. He was a pioneer in computerising his organisation and it was reputed that his income ran from six to seven figures annually. The richer he was, the more powerful he grew. His entertainment bill alone ran to thousands of dollars every month. But the bill included entertainment of police officers and that was the start of his downfall.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), who had no interest in investigating his alleged moneylending activities, became interested in Ah Long San because of his involvement with police officers. Investigations against Ah Long San ended with him being charged with a number of corruption charges. Even before he was charged, he was seeking me out for advice and so it came as no surprise when his men came to me one day to inform me that he was going to be charged the next day in Court 26.
I appeared in Court 26 and applied for him to be released on bail. Most of the charges were for corrupting police officers to obtain favours from them. Several police officers themselves were charged with showing Ah Long San favouritism, in exchange for being entertained at the Lido Palace. Others did them for a couple of drinks and sexual favours that Ah Long San or his men arranged for them. These police officers sold their careers very cheaply. They were found guilty and punished. They deserved it.
I started negotiations with the CPIB in the hope of getting the charges against Ah Long San reduced. The CPIB was prepared to strike a deal if Ah Long San testifed against the police officers and also provided more information that could be used against other police officers. The CPIB was sure that higher ranking police officers were involved. I thought the deal was reasonable but Ah Long San refused to accept it. He said that he would not testify against the police officers and he had no information to give the CPIB regarding other police officers. He told me that he could not betray the officers who had been charged and he was confident that they would not testify against him. He was mistaken. All the police officers gave statements against him and subsequently testified against him in court. I watched him as he sat in the dock, expressionless. Later I asked him what he thought of those policemen. He smiled and told me that nothing shocked him where the police was concerned, and I remembered what my clients used to tell me: “Don’t trust a policeman.”
His case was heard before District Judge Jasvinder Kaur, a stern but fair judge even though she had spent many years as a DPP. Most of the witnesses who testified were employees from Lido Palace. The
mama-san
described how she had served Ah Long San and his “police guests”, the number of girls she had provided and who had settled the bills. The waiter testified to the number of policemen in the room and the drinks they had. In the course of the trial, it became evident that I too frequented the place. I told the judge that since all parties including the DPP had seen Lido Palace at night, maybe she should also visit the nightclub to get a real feel of it. She responded by saying that she was not going to allow me to take her to Lido Palace under any circumstances. The people in the court roared with laughter and some of the lawyers present told me it was a good try.
At the end of the trial, Ah Long San was convicted and sentenced to 18 months in jail. I wanted the remaining charges of similar moneylending and corruption of other people to be taken into consideration and to end the saga. Ah Long San refused. He gave me instructions to appeal against the conviction and the sentence, and I did accordingly. By the time the appeal came before Chief Justice Yong Pung How, I managed to convince Ah Long San to withdraw his appeal. A few days before the hearing date of the appeal, he came to my office and said that the CPIB must tell him how many charges they were going to proceed with out of the remaining charges. He felt he had to fight those charges. I told him: “First things first. Let us withdraw the appeal.” He agreed.
In the Appellate Court, he produced a medical certificate stating that he was not fit to attend court because of a heart problem. Chief Justice Yong adjourned the case. The next time the case came up, I again produced a medical certificate stating that Ah Long San had undergone a heart by-pass operation. The case was adjourned. The third time the appeal case came up, Ah Long San did not turn up. Many of his men were there in court but he was not. I informed the Chief Justice that he was not in court and asked whether his case could be stood down to the afternoon. The Chief Justice agreed. He did not turn up that afternoon and a warrant of arrest was issued. The hunt for Ah Long San began.
I thought that with his various connections overseas, he would have escaped to Thailand or Hong Kong. That was not so. One of his friends told me that Ah Long San would be contacting him soon. Ah Long San called the friend to pass me a message: he wanted me to carry a mobile phone so that he could contact me whenever it was convenient for him. I told the friend to let him know that I was not going to carry a mobile phone and that he should surrender. I made it clear that I would talk to him only when he surrendered. He was upset with me and changed lawyers.
His new lawyer was Edmund Pereira. Ah Long San eventually surrendered and was produced before Chief Justice Yong. I was there to discharge myself. Edmund, who did not have much time to prepare for the case, asked my permission to use my submission as it had already been filed with the court. The Chief Justice, as usual, was polite throughout the proceedings. I was a bit surprised that no application to withdraw the appeal had been made. Obviously, Ah Long San had changed his mind again. Edmund argued the appeal with his usual eloquence but the Chief Justice was not one who is impressed with eloquence. He dealt with hard facts, being the hardnosed judge that he was. After listening patiently to Edmund, Chief Justice Yong asked him: “Mr Pereira, how long do you think your client should get?”
Edmund replied: “I leave it entirely to your Lordship (even though ‘your Honour’ was the term we used).”
Chief Justice Yong smiled and said: “I thank you for the faith you have in me, Mr Pereira. I am raising the term of imprisonment from 18 months to 48 months.”
Everybody was stunned. I had expected an enhancement of the original sentence, which was why I wanted to withdraw the appeal, but 48 months was a bit too much. Subsequently, Ah Long San pleaded guilty to the remaining charges and was sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
For a long time I thought Ah Long San was angry with me. So it came as a pleasant surprise when his daughter visited my office and said that he wanted to see me. I visited him in prison and things were the same as before. He wanted me to help him get out of prison earlier through the home detention scheme where offenders had to wear electronic tags to monitor their movements and curfew hours. I wrote to the Prisons director but he was not prepared to release Ah Long San early by electronic tagging. I felt that it was not a fair decision but that’s the way it is.