Amoy Street wine shop murder

Neoh Bean Chye, the owner of the gun, which was used to kill Chew.

Lim Kim Huat, who was identified by a witness as the one who shot and killed Chew.

On 30 October 1973, the High Court conducted the trial of both Lim Kim Huat and Neoh Bean Chye for the murder of Chew Liew Tea. Lim was represented by Michael Hwang while Neoh was represented by Amarjit Singh. Glenn Knight was the trial prosecutor of the case, and the trial was presided by two judges Choor Singh and D. C. D'Cotta (Dennis Cosmo D'Cotta). Professor Chao Tzee Cheng and Chew's friend Sim Ah Nam came to court as witnesses to testify for the prosecution.[9][10]

A taxi driver, Lee Mong Koi (also spelt Lee Mong Qoi), who was a known friend to Neoh and Lim, also appeared as a key witness for the prosecution, and he testified that Lim and Neoh had mentioned about them killing Chew during a robbery when he met them at a coffee shop. He also claimed that Neoh passed to him a revolver and five bullets, wanting to sell it to him, but Lee did not have the money, so he asked to keep it until Neoh's return to Singapore from Penang. That gun, which Lee surrendered to the police after Neoh's arrest, was the same murder weapon which the men used to kill Chew.[11] Lee also stated that he heard Lim saying that during the robbery, he held the victim Chew on gunpoint and told him in Penang Hokkien that he should not move or he will "splash" him. Under Lee's recount to the court, the term "splash" meant "shoot" in Hokkien. The defence counsel sought to cast doubt over Lee's evidence, claiming that Lee had bought the gun instead of safekeeping it for Neoh, and deliberately falsified his testimony in order to avoid being implicated for the offence of illegally possessing a firearm, which was punishable by imprisonment and caning.[12][13][14]

It was established by the prosecution that both men had tried to rob Chew but failed to, which led to them killing Chew. It was also established through witness accounts and fingerprint tests that the gun belonged to Neoh, and that Lim was the one who fired the gun and killed Chew, and both of them were indeed at the scene of crime. Although it was certain and clear-cut from the prosecution's case and evidence that Lim, who directly killed Chew, would face the death penalty for murder, there was however, a crucial question at trial on whether Neoh should be held equally culpable like Lim for killing Chew despite being not the one firing the gun.[15][16]

Both men elected to give evidence under oath. Neoh admitted on the stand that the gun belonged to him and he had indeed loaded the gun, but he testified that there was never an intention to commit murder despite their plan to commit robbery. Neoh stated that after he and Lim travelled from Penang to Singapore to commit armed robbery, they brought along the gun, which would be used to threaten Chew if necessary. He recounted that after Chew put up a struggle against the two men at gunpoint, the revolver was discharged during the scuffle and Chew collapsed, and the firing of the revolver was not on purpose.[17] Similarly, Lim testified on the stand that he never meant to shoot Chew during the fight between him and Chew, as the gun had somehow went off without notice and wounded Chew on the chest, and the two men had to flee from the scene before they can be caught, leaving Chew to die at his shop.[18][19]

In response, the prosecution submitted that Lim intentionally fired the gun to kill Chew, and the death of Chew was caused in furtherance of the duo's common intention to commit robbery and by application of the provisions under Section 34 of the Penal Code, Neoh should be held equally liable to a charge of murder like Lim, since he and Lim shared a common intention to commit robbery and murder, and they had planned to use the gun to facilitate their crime and use violence if necessary, and made plans to wait for the opportunity to commit armed robbery.[20][21]

On 8 November 1973, the trial judges Choor Singh and D. C. D'Cotta ruled in their verdict that both 29-year-old Neoh Bean Chye and 25-year-old Lim Kim Huat were accordingly found guilty of the charge of murdering 42-year-old Chew Liew Tea, after they accepted the prosecution's arguments and rejected the men's defences of accidental shooting or no intention to kill. Neoh and Lim were both automatically sentenced to death upon their conviction for murder, as capital punishment was prescribed as the mandatory sentence for all four offences of murder under the Penal Code and judges in Singapore had no discretion (up until 2013) to impose any other punishments apart from death in these cases.[22][23]

Neoh and Lim were reported as among the 17 inmates held on death row at Changi Prison pending their executions as of February 1974, for which the number decreased to 15 by October 1974 while they were appealing their sentences. Among these inmates (most of whom convicted for murder) include the seven murderers of the Gold Bars triple murders, who were later executed for killing a businessman and two others for 120 gold bars.[24][25][26]

In July 1974, both Neoh Bean Chye and Lim Kim Huat appealed to the Court of Appeal to review their cases,[27][28] but the three judges - Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, and two other judges Tan Ah Tah and A V Winslow - upheld that the two men clearly had the common intention to cause Chew's death in the course of armed robbery, and hence they dismissed the appeals of Lim and Neoh on 5 August 1974.[29][30][31] On 9 April 1975, both Neoh and Lim applied for special leave to appeal to the Privy Council of London in a final bid to escape the gallows, but the Privy Council refused to approve their applications, which therefore finalize their death sentences.[32][33][34]

On 27 June 1975, after losing their final death row plea, both 32-year-old Neoh Bean Chye and 28-year-old Lim Kim Huat were both hanged at Changi Prison.[35][36] Both men's families, who received their death warrants one week before the executions, travelled from Penang to Singapore to collect their bodies. A Buddhist monk, who counselled both Neoh and Lim while they were still on death row, said prayers and authorized their funerals on their behalf after the double hanging of the gunmen.[37][38]

In the aftermath of the men's executions, the trial prosecutor Glenn Knight would become famous for his 1983 prosecution of Adrian Lim, Singapore's most infamous child killer who was hanged in 1988 for murdering two children for ritual sacrifice,[39][40][41] and became director of the Commercial Affairs Department, but his reputation would be tarnished with his conviction for bribery in 1991. Knight, who was subsequently disqualified from law practice for sixteen years after his 1991 trial and imprisonment for corruption, later wrote his memoir, in which he recorded the case of Chew Liew Tea's shooting as one of his most memorable cases, and the book itself was published in 2012, the fifth year after his re-instatement and return to practice law (which the court approved).[42][43]

The case of Neoh Bean Chye and Lim Kim Huat was one of the early legal cases where it touched on the applicability and relevance of Section 34 of the Penal Code in convicting a person of murder in lieu of the common intention shared by more than one member of the group charged for such an offence,[44][45] and it was cited by several judgements of cases where more than one person was charged and tried for murder by common intention, like the Bock Tuan Thong murder case and the Wan Cheon Kem robbery-murder case.[46][47]