1997 landlady murder

Kamala Rani Balakrishnan, the sole conspirator of the four to have her murder charge dismissed before trial.

On 20 October 1997, one of the four conspirators - Kamala Rani Balakrishnan - was the first to be tried for the robbery and assault of Sivapackiam Veerappan Rengasamy. By then, Kamala's murder charge was reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder. She was also charged with having taken part in the conspiracy with the other three suspects to commit the robbery and assault on Sivapackiam. Kamala pleaded guilty to her lower charges and was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment.[9][10]

On 12 January 1998, the remaining three suspects - Gerardine Andrew, Mansoor Abdullah and Nazar Mohamed Kassim - claimed trial for murder in the High Court.[11] High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu was the presiding judge of the case, and the prosecution was led by Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Bala Reddy of the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC). Edward D'Souza represented Mansoor as his lawyer, while Christina Goh acted as Gerardine's defence counsel, and Nazar engaged David Rasif as his lawyer for the trial.

The summary of the events based on the four suspects' confessions revealed that during her time as Sivapackiam's tenant, Gerardine had arguments with Sivapackiam over several issues (including her rent and limitations of her use of the telephone) and the frequent verbal abuse Sivapackiam spewed at Gerardine for her occupation and behaviour, which led to the hampering of the good relationship Gerardine originally shared with her landlady. After one particularly intense quarrel with her landlady, Gerardine met up with her friends Kamala, Mansoor and Nazar, telling them her troubles and distress. At that point, Gerardine asked her three friends to assault her landlady, and she also promised them they could steal the landlady's jewellery, cash and gold accessories. Although Gerardine and Mansoor confirmed that the plan was to beat up the landlady, Nazar however, claimed Gerardine told them to kill Sivapackiam.[12][13][14][15]

Mansoor's account of the crime was that on the day he came to Sivapackiam's flat, he and Nazar were supposed to pretend to be potential tenants looking to rent a room from Sivapackiam in order to enter her flat to execute their robbery and assault plan while Kamala and Gerardine would wait for the men near the staircases outside the flat. Mansoor said both he and Nazar received gloves from Gerardine to avoid leaving fingerprints at the crime scene. Upon entry, Mansoor and Nazar restrained the landlady in her bedroom, and Mansoor used a thin iron chain to strangle Sivapackiam, who was still struggling. Nazar, meanwhile, used a clay bowl to hit Sivapackiam's head and even took out a knife to stab Sivapackiam three times on the neck, and the stabbing led to the death of 53-year-old Sivapackiam. Mansoor said in his defence he never had the intention to cause death or at least fatal injuries to Sivapackiam, and he only wanted to rob the landlady of her jewellery and cash. He also stated that after the landlady was killed, he and the others searched the flat but could not find the valuables owned by the landlady and hence, they escaped the flat empty-handed. The escape of the four robbers were witnessed by Sivapackiam's neighbour Ngo Ah Poo and Ngo's younger god-sister Tay Cheow Tee, who both became the prosecution's witnesses.[16]

From Gerardine's account, she stated that aside from the occasional conflicts they had with each other, she and Sivapackiam normally shared a good relationship with each other. Gerardine also said she never wanted to cause the death of her landlady despite having solicited the robbery plan and assault, and she only wanted the landlady to be beaten up and robbed of her valuables, and also said she did not know Nazar had taken a knife with him to commit the robbery.[17] However, the prosecution raised the fact that while Gerardine genuinely did not intend to cause Sivapackiam's death, the fact that her direction of the robbery plan and assault having led to the landlady's death demonstrated that there was an intention to cause not merely simple injury, but also serious harm to the landlady, and her alleged awareness of dangerous weapons in Nazar's possession should be factors pointing to Gerardine's guilt for murder under the law.[18]

Lastly, from Nazar's account, he did not deny stabbing Sivapackiam to her death, and his account of what happened before the assault was similar to Mansoor. He claimed he only took the knife just to threaten the landlady during the robbery. However, in court, Nazar additionally stated he suffered from temporary insanity and a mental blackout during the course of stabbing, as a result of headaches caused by a childhood traumatic injury to his head. His poor academic performance at school and dysfunctional family background (Nazar was raised by foster mother since young) were also factors cited by his lawyer to show the aftermath of Nazar's childhood accident and how he gone astray.[19] However, the prosecution rebutted that Nazar had full control of his mental faculties and able to coherently and clearly describe the sequence of events on the day of the murder, and the prosecution's psychiatrist Chan Keen Loong confirmed there was no abnormality of mind exhibited by Nazar during the commission of the offence.[20]

Mansoor Abdullah, one of the two men sentenced to death.

Nazar Mohamed Kassim, one of the two men sentenced to death.

After a 17-day trial, High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu decided on his verdict and delivered it on 6 February 1998.

In the case of Mansoor, Justice Kan stated that Mansoor may not have the intention to cause death, but he and Nazar together shared the common intention to rob and assault the landlady, and in furtherance of both the men's common intention, Nazar intentionally inflicted the knife injuries on Sivapackiam and the stabbing led to her death. Based on the legal concept of common intention, Mansoor should share the same culpability with Nazar for the offence of murder and thus, Justice Kan found Mansoor guilty of murder.

In the case of Gerardine, Justice Kan accepted that Gerardine did not have the intention to solicit the murder of her landlady, and had no intention to cause Sivapackiam's death, based on the fact that she did not tell her accomplices to cause death or serious injury to Sivapackiam. He also accepted that Gerardine was not aware of Nazar carrying the knife with him prior to the robbery, after he found the inconsistency between Nazar and Mansoor's testimonies on whether she was aware of the knife. Justice Kan stated that since there was no intention on Gerardine's part to cause Sivapackiam to die despite having directed the robbery and assault plan, he decided to dismiss the murder charge against Gerardine and convict her of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (or manslaughter).

Finally, turning to the case of Nazar, Justice Kan rejected Nazar's defence of diminished responsibility, as he found Nazar able to coherently recount every little detail of how he attacked and murdered Sivapackiam, and in the aftermath of the killing, Nazar had the consciousness of cleaning himself up, changing into a fresh set of clothes and disposed of his bloodstained clothes, which demonstrated he had full control of his mental faculties. Since he did not have any abnormality of the mind, and that he intentionally inflicted knife injuries on Sivapackiam, for which the wounds were in the ordinary cause of nature could lead to death, there were sufficient grounds to find Nazar guilty of murder.[21]

As such, both 20-year-old Mansoor Abdullah and 27-year-old Nazar Mohamed Kassim were sentenced to the mandatory death penalty, the only sentence permitted for murder under the laws of Singapore. On the other hand, 35-year-old Gerardine Andrew, who was convicted of manslaughter instead of murder, was spared the gallows and hence, she was sentenced to eight years' imprisonment.[22][23][24]