Once a Jolly Hangman (24 page)

Sgt Rajkumar was not taking sides. In his eyes, at 29 and an experienced officer, both men were guilty, partners in a scheme to transport dangerous and illegal drugs into Singapore and sell them. And as so often happens in the murky world of drug dealers and drug agents, Rajkumar had a string of informers who provided him with tips in exchange for favours and considerations. One of these was the now mysterious Tahir who had contacted the officer in early September and provided him with some juicy information. A Malaysian drug syndicate, mainly ethnic Indians, had a sizeable amount of heroin to move. Ihey were looking to sell it in booming Singapore where it
attracted much higher prices than in Malaysia. Rajkumar quickly sprung into action. He told Tahir to try to set up a deal with this syndicate and he would pose as a very interested, potential buyer. He provided the informer with a mobile phone number so that the Malaysian dealers could contact him directly if they wished. In Rajkumar's account of events presented at the trials of Vignes Mourthi and Angappan, the first call came only at 11 a.m. on Thursday 20 September. The syndicate had a pound of heroin and ready to deal. The officer said he was very interested and immediately set up the sting operation with a nine-man team. According to court records, when he was completing the transaction with Vignes Mourthi using the name 'Segar', Rajkumar said the young man 'brusquely' asked him where the money was. He said it was in the car with his partner and Rajkumar then demanded: 'Where's the stuff?' Vignes Mourthi replied that it was hidden somewhere near the mosque. He told him to get the money then follow him towards the mosque. He also asked the officer if he could trust the Chinese man in the car. 'Segar' told him not to worry, the man was his 'financier' and that 'without him, I cannot deal'. The
officer had one more ploy after the exchange took place to seal the sting and have Vignes Mourthi firmly in the trap. When he asked if the 'stuff' was good, Vignes Mourthi proudly replied, 'Its very good. Watch and see. You are sure to come back to deal with me again'. At that point, Rajkumar gave the thumbs up signal.

It was a case that was riddled with controversy. Vignes Mourthi, only 21, denied to the bitter end that he knew he was carrying heroin and insisted that Angappan told him the packets contained incense stones. He had been duped by Angappan. Angappan insisted he had been betrayed by Vignes Mourthi to save himself. The two were tried together in the High Court and the case, which spread over a five- month period, ended in August 2002. They were seated side by side in the defendant's dock throughout and the hatred that developed between the two former friends was obvious to everyone in the courtroom. One observer wrote: 'At times, it almost seemed as if the state could save itself the costs of both trial and executions by simply leaving the two alone in a darkened room for ten minutes, allowing them the opportunity to strangle each other to death'. They were represented by two different counsels - Vignes Mourthi by Phillip Lum and Moorthy Angappan by Lee Teck Leng. In the end Vignes Mourthi was found guilty of trafficking not less than 27.65 grams of heroin while Angappan was found guilty of abetting the offence and sentenced to death. Vignes Mourthi's conviction seemed to have been based largely on a handwritten record of an incriminating conversation, which allegedly took place between him and Rajkumar, when he was asked if the 'stuff' was good.

Evidence by Angappan's relatives that he was with them at a birthday party the evening Vignes Mourthi claimed he visited him and later dropped off the packets was rejected by the trial judge, Tay Yong Kwang. The appeal against Tay s verdict began on 25 November 2005. It was heard by a three-judge coram, Chief Justice Yong Pung How, Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin and Justice Judith Prakash. For this important appeal Angappan was again represented by Lee Tech Leng assisted by Michael Soo Chia. Vignes Mourthi had new counsel, Subhas Anandan. Anandan is one of the most high profile criminal defence lawyers in Singapore and Vignes Mourthi was told he was
in the best possible hands. According to court records he argued that the trial judge erred
in not giving this naive young man' the benefit of the doubt. He was just another innocent dupe taken advantage of by a more sophisticated adult. In particular he challenged a controversial piece of prosecution evidence which recorded elements of their conversation alleging that Vignes Mourthi knew exactly what was in the packets he gave to him in exchange for S$8,000. This crucial information may have been recorded much later, perhaps more than two months after the sting, making its reliability open to question. He implied that the narcotics police, having realised that their case may not have been as rock solid as they first thought, decided to bolster their case by squeezing in a few more piquant details. The record of the conversation was not signed or dated and Anandan maintained that considering Vignes Mourthis life hung in the balance, these facts presented a reasonable doubt as to his guilt.

On 22 January 2003 the Court of Appeal rejected both Vignes Mourthis and Angappan's appeals, spurning all pleas to entertain reasonable doubt in favour of supporting the trial judge's decision. They were on their way to the gallows and would be hung together at dawn one Friday at the convenience of the justice system. Their only hope now was a presidential clemency, a rare event in Singapore's legal history. Human rights activist and lawyer, M. Ravi, entered the fray at this stage on behalf of Vignes Mourthi. He had been approached by the condemned man's desperate family who by then had become totally impoverished by the court costs that had cleaned them out to the tune of $47,000 for Anandan's services alone, according to Vasu Mourthi. Although Vignes's father, Vasu, offered him $3,000, Ravi refused and agreed to do what he could pro bono. He studied the case, recruited the help of a renowned lawyer, the late J.B. Jeyaretnam, and embarked on three special motions requesting a retrial on the grounds that there had been a miscarriage of justice. This again centred on that conversation which Rajkumar put in evidence that showed Vignes Mourthi knew he was handling drugs and not incense stones as he claimed and which the accused maintained never took place. The note produced in evidence recording the conversation bore no date and could have been written up at any time.

Neither Vignes Mourthi nor the defence lawyers at the original trial were aware that such a document existed before it was produced in court. He said the trial judge relied heavily on it to convict his client.

He also questioned the fact that the mysterious informant, Tahir, was never produced as a witness and had apparently vanished. On 25 September 2003, the then Chief Justice Yong Pung How, who had already been party to denying Vignes Mourthi's appeal, ruled that the case could not be reopened, as it had already gone through the courts. At this final appeal hearing Ravi asked whether 'the Deputy Public Prosecutor is still maintaining that an innocent man can be hanged due to procedural matters'. The DPP, Bala Reddy, refused to reply, but Ravi instead got a quick response from the Chief Justice Yong himself, who said: 'Yes, the answer is yes'. At the end of this hearing the accused rose and addressed the bench. He said that he was not afraid to die, but if he was going to die the next morning, he wanted to know the reasons for his execution. The Chief Justice said the decision would be published in due course and everyone could find the reasons there. It was the third time in three weeks that Ravi had
appeared in court to stop Vignes Mourthi from being executed, only to be told he had no case. The Chief Justice told him brusquely: 'As far as the law is concerned he has been found guilty and convicted. Not much point for you to go on'. But Ravi wanted his client to be acquitted, or at least retried, and spent almost three hours trying to persuade Yong, Chao and Tan. Thanking him at the end, the Chief Justice said: 'It has crystallised our thinking ... that you have no case'. His decision especially emphasised Ravi's conviction that it was unfair for Yong and Chao to be called upon to issue a judgement against their decision. Given this double bind, Ravi asked, could it really be claimed that his client had been given a fair hearing earlier that day? This plea was also made against the Chief Justice's remark than an innocent may be hanged for procedural reasons.

It was the end of Ravi's unusual appearances in court, and Vignes Mourthi was expected to hang the very next morning. The Chief Justice ended the proceedings with the words: 'You can say he is innocent but as far as the law is concerned, he has been found guilty and convicted. You had better say goodbye to him, that's all you can do'. Ravi quickly drafted another appeal to the President which he sent via email at 9 p.m. that same day In this letter, a longish plea to the President in his capacity as 'guardian of the Constitution of the Republic of Singapore', he implored him to reconsider the unusual situation and at least issue a stay of execution. That final attempt to save Vignes Mourthi's life
again fell on deaf ears. In mid-October 2003, just three weeks after the executions, the Court of Appeal released its reason for having denied that final appeal a matter of hours before the execution. Once a criminal appeal has been dealt with, it explained and as related to me by Ravi, neither the Court of Appeal nor the High Court can re-open the case. Chief Justice Yong cited three precedents in rendering this decision. In one of these cases, Lim Choon Chye vs Public Prosecutor, the appeal was dismissed even though the applicant asserted that fresh evidence proving innocent had turned up since the earlier denial of an appeal. In this case, the former Judge of Appeal, M. Karthiegesu, had stated that it was not the Singapore parliaments intention to allow appellants an 'indefinitely extended right of appeal'. Therefore, a second appeal could not be allowed in any case where an appeal had already been heard and dismissed. Even if that case involved the death penalty and an irreversible error may have been made. Said Ravi: "The October 13 2003 decision of the court was fairly short and sweet, written in clear and compelling language. I can only hope that on the day of its release, Vignes Mourthi, wherever he was, could finally appreciate the reasons why he was hanged, especially when he had personally made that request to see the written judgment'.

But if ever there was good cause for Singapore to abolish capital punishment this must be the one. In any other country with a free press and independent judiciary, with fearless investigative journalists raking through the muck, what had been happening secretly behind the scenes almost from the moment Vignes Mourthy was arrested would have created such uproar there would be demands for heads to roll in the highest places. Similar examples of catastrophic failures of the justice system in Britain more than 50 years ago contributed to the death penalty finally being abolished there. But this one in Singapore - had it become known - might also have finally awakened its
citizens to stand up and question what goes on in their name in the courts and on any Friday morning at dawn. That's when they hang people convicted of capital crimes such as drug trafficking or murder. But in Singapore - ranked 133rd in the Press Freedom Index 2009 by Reporters Without Borders - this scandal could not possibly have made the kind of screaming headlines in the pages of the government-controlled Straits Times, The New Paper or Today it deserved. Had this shameful episode

been exposed, a precious life might well have been saved. For it is clear from what happened after his arrest that Vignes Mourthi was possibly hanged on false evidence - evidence that may have been concocted by a corrupt cop to ensure his conviction and execution. It was only by chance during my investigations that I discovered from unpublished legal documents the complete ghastly events that went on in secret after Vignes Mourthi' arrest, trial and execution.

This case is arguably one of the most appalling miscarriages of justice in Singapore's history, made worse by the fact that top lawyers and perhaps the Justice Minister himself knew yet did nothing. The story concerns Sgt S. Rajkumar, a senior officer with the Central Narcotics Bureau and the prosecution's most valuable witness in Vignes Mourthi's trial. But what was never revealed at any time until after he was hanged, was the fact that while Rajkumar was helping to send him to the gallows, he was being investigated by officers of the Criminal Investigation Department for the alleged rape and sodomy of a young woman and subsequent attempts to bribe her to drop the charges. It was his sworn testimony that sealed Vignes Mourthi's fate - the controversial piece of evidence, added perhaps months later, when he was alleged to have said: 'It's very good .... You are sure to come back to deal with me again'. Vignes Mourthi always denied he ever said this or that he even knew he was carrying drugs. It was the contention of the defence that this statement was entered into Rajkumar's field book and added undated and not signed by Vignes Mourthi on a separate sheet of paper some time after the arrest to ensure a watertight case. But no one on the defence team, or so it appears, had any notion at this time that Rajkumar himself was under investigation for corruption and the rape of the young woman he'd handcuffed in a friend's flat the very day after he arrested Vignes Mourthi. And it wasn't until after his execution and the eventual trial and jailing of Rajkumar and another police officer that I came across the full damning evidence and the possible consequences of this CNB officers own criminal activities.

It revealed that between those two dates - Vignes Mourthi's arrest for drug trafficking on 20 September 2001 and the allegations made against Rajkumar the following day - that this trusted officer had committed several heinous crimes. The accusation was that Rajkumar had taken a young woman of his acquaintance to a friend's apartment
where he handcuffed, raped and sodomised her before returning home to his wife who at that time was three months pregnant. The next day the woman filed charges against Rajkumar. Sodomy in Singapore is defined as anal sex, and is a criminal offence even between consenting adults. Rajkumar was arrested on September 23 - two days after he arrested Vignes Mourthi - avowed his innocence and released on bail. Instead of being suspended from duty until the allegations were resolved either way, he was allowed to continue building the case against Vignes
Mourthi and to set about attempting to get the young woman to drop the charges first with money then, just as appallingly, appealing to her humanity! Police colleagues of Rajkumar rallied round him offering the young woman bribes starting at $10,000 and with an arrogant warning that the publicity would bring great shame on her. Although the case against Rajkumar eventually went ahead, it was put on the backburner while the trial of Vignes Mourthi continued to its barbaric, grisly end on the gallows on 26 September 2003. A string of witnesses on both sides took the stand in Rajkumar s trial the following year. Both he and one of his friends, police officer Balbir Singh, were found guilty of corruption. District Court Judge Sia Aik Kor sentenced Rajkumar to 15 months in prison and Singh to six months. No mention was made of the rape and sodomy charges against Rajkumar possibly because the hapless young woman finally withdrew the allegations, not for money but because of sympathy for her attacker's family.