Afro Asia Building fire: Accused did not think blaze would kill
Mr Rengarajoo Rengasamy Balasamy at the Supreme Court on Oct 23, 2015. Photo: Ooi Boon Keong
SINGAPORE — When he set his case file on fire, hoping it would prevent his children from being made bankrupt over legal fees he owed, he did not think it would turn into a blaze that would torch the office and leave Mdm Low Foong Meng dead, claimed the man accused of murdering her, when he took the stand today (Nov 3) to give his version of events.
Govindasamy Nallaiah, a former customs officer, also claimed that it was Mdm’s Low threat to bankrupt his children if he did not cough up the fees owed that pushed him over the edge, causing him to attack Mdm Low with his bicycle chain and padlock.
Govindasamy, 70, is accused of murdering Mdm Low, 56, over more than S$38,000 in legal fees he owed her husband Rengarajoo Rengasamy Balasamy, in Mr Rengarajoo’s office at the Afro Asia Building on Aug 10, 2011. Mr Rengarajoo, whom Govindasamy had known since they were 15, defended him in a 2002 corruption trial.
Taking the stand today, Govindasamy said he had tried to negotiate with Mdm Low that morning, offering to pay S$5,000 upfront and the remainder in instalments.
He also showed her a handful of bracelets and rings, which she could keep as security, or which he could pawn and give her the cash.
Govindasamy, speaking through an interpreter, said Mdm Low angrily rejected his offer. She wanted him to first pay S$15,000 and subsequently monthly instalments of S$2,000, telling him not to waste her time if he could not do so, he said.
When she threatened to bankrupt his children the next day if he did not fork out the S$15,000, he became enraged. Tearing as he recounted the sequence of events, Govindasamy said: “My brain was not working in my anger. I took the (chain) and I hit her.”
He had the chain with him in his bag as he used it to lock the steering wheel of the taxi he drove to deter vehicle theft, he explained.
After she fell under his blows, he found his case file — containing a promissory note that held his children liable for his debt — on a table, as well as a lighter. Unable to set the file on fire, he took a towel from his bag, lit it and left it burning on the file. Other papers on the table then caught fire.
Asked by his defence lawyer
R Thrumurgan why he tried to burn the file, Govindasamy said: “Because the promissory note that my children signed was inside the file. I thought that if I burned the file, a case would not be made against my children.”
Govindasamy added that he thought that once the fire alarm went off, sprinklers would come on and security would arrive to help. “Nothing would have happened to her and she will be safe,” he said, adding Mdm Low was at least 5m away from the fire.
Today, the defence also cross-examined forensics expert Dr Gilbert Lau, questioning him on the results of an experiment conducted by the defence’s forensics expert Johan Duflou.
Dr Lau had earlier testified that he found three cuts on Mdm Low during the autopsy, which were probably caused by a sharp cutting instrument such as a knife.
Professor Duflou had used a replica of the chain and padlock to inflict similar incised wounds on pig’s skin.
But Dr Lau disagreed with the way the experiment was conducted, noting it lacked controls to compare the results meaningfully, among other reasons.
The trial continues tomorrow.
