Four years’ jail for ‘Singapore’s most prolific match-fixer’
Rajendran Kurusamy (rear) leaves court on May 30, 2015. Photo: Jason Quah/TODAY
SINGAPORE — Two months before the South-east Asian (SEA) Games this year, Rajendran R Kurusamy, described by public prosecutors as Singapore’s most prolific match-fixer, was hatching a plan to fix a football match between the Timor Leste and Malaysia teams.
For this — which saw him trying to get the Timor Leste team to lose to Malaysia — Rajendran was sentenced to four years’ jail, the stiffest sentence ever imposed for a single match-fixing charge.
Rajendran today (Sept 21) pleaded guilty to two charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act, involving payments to Orlando Marques Henriques Mendes, former technical director of the Timor Leste Football Association, and at least seven players of the Timor Leste SEA Games football team.
According to court documents, Rajendran, 55, had met Nasiruddin, an Indonesian, on March 20, and directed him to rope in others interested in fixing the match to ensure a defeat to Malaysia’s football team on May 30.
The pair later roped in former Timor Leste player Moises Natalino de Jesus and paid for Moises to come to Singapore. Rajendran wanted Timor-Leste to not concede a goal in the first 20 minutes, but eventually lose to Malaysia by a few goals. He offered Orlando S$15,000, and S$4,000 to each complicit player, to ensure the defeat. Rajendran also told Orlando that seven players would be enough to help lose the game, but it would be better if all 11 players were involved.
The Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau arrested Rajendran, Nasiruddin, Orlando and Moises before the match, which ended 1-0 in Malaysia’s favour.
Pressing for a sentence of four-and-a-half years, the prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Nicholas Khoo, charged that Rajendran’s ploy to fix a match in an international tournament hosted by Singapore tarnished the Republic’s reputation, and would have distorted the true capability of the Timor Leste football team while denying the Malaysian team true sporting achievement.
Prosecutors also argued that Rajendran was a prime mover in the conspiracy and who played an integral role in arranging meetings to discuss the fix in Singapore and in Batam two months before the games, as well as provided the funds to move the plan along.
They also highlighted the transnational nature of the offence, where actors of an organised criminal group were “procured from abroad in order to execute a well laid out plan”.
Defence lawyer Edmond Pereira pleaded for a sentence of 36 to 42 months, urging the court to not “over-emphasise the status of the game”.
In sentencing, District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim took into account Rajendran’s string of related offences dating back to 1997. He was jailed 27 months in 1997 for attempting to bribe three S-League players. Two years later, he was jailed another 24 months for agreeing to give S$20,000 to a prison warden to smuggle him a cellphone, which he used to make football bets and illegal personal calls.
Meanwhile, Nasiruddin was jailed 30 months in July, while the cases against Orlando and Moises are still before the court.
