Court of Appeal upholds murder acquittal, sentence of man who slashed cigarette syndicate leader
A general view of the Supreme Court in Singapore on Sep 23, 2022. John Soh Chee Wen, the mastermind behind the S$8 billion penny-stock crash in late 2013, was sentenced by the High Court on Dec 28, 2022 to 36 years in prison. (File photo: CNA/Try Sutrisno Foo)
SINGAPORE: The Court of Appeal on Friday (Nov 11) upheld the sentence passed down by the High Court in the case of a man who was given jail and caning for slashing an illegal cigarette syndicate leader who later died.
Bangladeshi Miya Manik, 33, had been tried for murder, but was acquitted at the close of trial and convicted instead of a lesser charge of causing grievous hurt with a chopper.
Both the prosecution and defence appealed to the Apex Court, with the prosecution asking that Manik be convicted of murder with common intention, and the defence asking for a lower sentence.
The victim, Mr Munshi Abdur Rahim, had died in 2016 from a clash between two illegal cigarette syndicates.
The victim had been the leader of one of these syndicates. The two groups were vying for control of a field near a foreign worker dormitory in Tuas in September 2016.
Manik, who belonged to the rival syndicate and was defending the group's control of the field, had attacked the victim along with two other men known only as Aziz and Mitho. The victim was knifed multiple times and died from a fatal injury to his leg.
However, footage of the incident was of low quality, with dark scenes and obscured views that did not show the important details.
The trial judge cleared Manik of murder as she found it unsafe to convict him of the capital charge, as there was reasonable doubt.
Delivering the judgment on Friday, Justice Tay Yong Kwang said the trial judge had correctly acquitted Manik of the original murder charge.
The trial judge had found that the three attackers' common intention was to attack the victim with choppers to cause grievous hurt. Even though the person who inflicted the fatal injury did so intentionally, this was a collateral offence that went beyond the trio's common intention, said Justice Tay.
It was not proven beyond reasonable doubt that Manik was the person who inflicted the fatal injury, so he was rightly acquitted.
Defence lawyers Eugene Thuraisingam and Chooi Jing Yen had argued against the sentence of 15 years and 15 strokes of the cane, saying it was manifestly excessive. They asked instead for not more than 12 years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane.
They said Manik deeply regrets his involvement in the case and is devastated by the consequences of his actions.
Justice Tay, who heard the appeals along with Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justice Steven Chong, agreed with the trial judge's "completely sensible" approach.
"We see no error in her application of the law to the facts as found by her and we agree with the sentence that she arrived at," they said.
