The Best I Could (12 page)

Although Sam had won, many people from the opposition camp had also been voted into the temple committee. I was reappointed legal advisor. There were numerous problems within the committee and some issues could not be resolved because of personality clashes. This created a lot of bitterness amongst the members. Even though I wasn’t the president, many petitions and complaints were lodged against me. I felt these were mostly unjustified. Complaints were forwarded to then Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew and to several government departments, stating that I was a gangster and that I was controlling the temple with the help of the Black Eagle Gang. Many allegations were made against me and some of my friends. To be honest, I didn’t know that such a gang even existed. It was all ludicrous as I simply didn’t have the time to be a gangster. I was too heavily involved in my law work and was also helping out at the temple in my free time. In 1976, I was arrested and detained under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act and taken to Queenstown Remand Prison off Margaret Drive. Enacted in 1958, this Act is the longest temporary provisions in the history of Singapore.

Soon after my arrest, some of my good friends at the temple, including Sam and Soman, were also arrested. They were not put into the Queenstown prison like I was. Instead they were held in a CID lock-up and interrogated for about two weeks. I suppose the police was hoping they would say something that could be used against me. They never did, but the longer they were in custody the more worried I became. In the end, as there was already such a public outcry over my arrest, Sam, Soman and the others were released. I heard the news in prison and was quite relieved even though I still didn’t have my freedom. If they had not been released, the case against me could have been very bad.

At the time of my arrest, my brother Sudheesh was working in the Ministry of Defence under Dr Goh Keng Swee. He wanted to speak to Dr Goh about my case but was told by his personal assistant that the minister was not free to see him. My brother was quite disappointed that his boss was not prepared to help him. Dr Goh was Singapore’s first Minister of Finance after independence in 1965. He was also the chief architect of Singapore’s early economic growth, including the creation of the Economic Development Board, the Port of Singapore Authority, the Jurong Town Corporation, the Housing and Development Board, the Ministry of Education and the Central Provident Fund. My brother held him in high regard as did many who worked under him.

After a few days, Dr Goh’s personal assistant called Sudheesh to say that he would see him. Dr Goh explained to Sudheesh why he could not see him earlier. Because of the high profile nature of my case, he had guessed why Sudheesh wanted to see him but he said that he was not able to help at the time. He told my brother: “I knew at the time that you wanted me to help. I know your brother better than you. I’ve got his university record. I don’t believe the charges against him are fair. Today, I have been appointed Acting Prime Minister as Mr Lee has gone overseas. I have asked the CPIB, which comes under the jurisdiction of the Prime Minister, to start an investigation into your brother’s case. I can assure you that the investigation will be thorough and if your brother is innocent, he will be released.” Sudheesh went away very happy that Dr Goh was able to intervene. Meanwhile, my friends went around collecting signatures from people who were living in Sembawang for my release, stating that I could not possibly be guilty of the fabrications levelled against me. I had support on many fronts.

Why was I was arrested in the first place? The story is one that relates to love scorned. The man who fabricated my involvement with the Black Eagle Gang was an Inspector Gopal and his two detectives, Vanampadi and Maniam. To understand the whole situation behind my arrest, I have to mention an episode concerning three brothers who lived at the Base. The brothers stayed in the same block as a married woman named Saroja. The eldest brother was having an affair with her. All the neighbours knew about it but everyone chose to mind their own business. One day there was a proposal for one of Saroja’s sisters to marry one of the brothers. The eldest brother objected on the basis that if Saroja could be such an unfaithful wife, one could expect no better from her sister. The proposal was rejected and the two families became bitter enemies.

A few months after that, Saroja became involved with Inspector Gopal. She started poisoning his mind against the brothers. Without revealing her affair with the eldest brother, she alleged that they were gangsters and extortionists and were bullying her family. Subsequently, the brothers were arrested and detained under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act.

The mother of the brothers appointed me as her sons’ lawyer. I discovered there were many irregularities in the arrest procedure as well as in Inspector Gopal’s pre-fabricated information. Inspector Gopal was the one who had made the arrest. As I delved deeper into the case, I found that he and his wife were bullying the people in his district. He was abusing his powers as an inspector with the support of a few police officers. Inspector Gopal realised that I was gathering evidence against him and his people, and decided that the only way to save himself was to fix me, which he did. He got people who had opposed me during my service at the temple to fabricate evidence against me. Finally, he managed to convince then Minister for Home Affairs Chua Sian Chin to sign a detention order against me. I felt then that Mr Chua was really not a capable minister. However, today his son is a good friend of mine and a capable banker.

Inspector Gopal and the other police officers thought that throwing me into jail would convey the message that any investigation on him would be over. But he didn’t bargain on my family and friends fighting to clear my name.

I was held in a solitary confinement cell as soon as I was put into Queenstown Remand Prison. I was stripped to my underwear and left to sleep on the cold hard cement floor. I could not tell whether it was day or night. There were no windows and light came through only when the wardens pushed the food through an opening in the heavy metal door. My mind began to wander to the many places and periods of my life. To keep my sanity and uplift my spirits, I played a game of ‘mental’ chess, holding both sides of the game. I focused on the strategies of chess. I didn’t understand why I had to be kept in solitary confinement. I was told that it was for my own safety but I didn’t believe that. It was a tough ordeal. Police officers would come occasionally to question me and ask me to sign statements. I never did sign them as doing so would not only have implicated me but also the friends with whom I grew up.

David Marshall visited me in Queenstown Prison. He was defending me along with Leo Fernando, a leading criminal lawyer, and Mak Kok Wing, a classmate of mine. One of the first things David Marshall told me was that he was very surprised that so many people had asked him to defend me. They were prepared to pay his fee because they felt that I should be defended by the best. He told me that he would not take a fee for defending me because he didn’t believe in charging a fellow lawyer. But at the end of it all, we paid his disbursements as we felt it was the right thing to do. He was quite pleased to receive that.

David Marshall told me: “I’ve spoken to the people up there, my lad. Are you prepared? They may keep you here for a long time without a trial and this detention order by the minister can be renewed every year. So, nobody knows how long you’ll be here, but they said if you are prepared to cooperate and sign those statements, you could make a deal and be out of here in the next couple of weeks.”

“I know the statements that they have prepared for me,” I replied. “Mr Marshall, those statements would get a lot of innocent people into trouble. They will all be remanded in prison and there will be no one there to fight for them except me when I get out. But if I’ve implicated them, I won’t even be on their side. These are people whom I grew up with and they are my friends. I am not going to get them into trouble.”

“But you know, lad, you can be here for a long time if you don’t cooperate,” he reiterated.

“I would rather be here for a long time than gain my freedom by betraying my friends.”

David Marshall smiled and held my hand. He was a very kind man. “I’m glad you have made that decision, lad. If you had told me otherwise, I would have carried on with your instructions but I would not have liked what I was doing.”

Once we had decided to fight my detention, my mind was at peace. The prison authorities treated me less harshly because I think David Marshall’s name carried a lot of weight. Also, from that time on, David Marshall and I developed a very good working relationship. Many of the documents, affidavits and evidence that he required were obtained by my brother, Sudheesh, who visited him to prepare the case. Mr Marshall told me that my brother would have made an excellent lawyer.

I lost track of time, so I’m not exactly sure when they took me out of solitary confinement and put me into the main part of the prison with the other inmates. I do remember a medical officer called Dr Singh who saw me early in my incarceration. I felt he was a disgrace to his profession. His ill-treatment of the prisoners knew no bounds. His attitude was worse than that of the wardens, with no sympathy at all for the inmates. Every ailment was treated with aspirin. More often than not, he would just bark at you and accuse you of being a malingerer.

The day I came out of solitary confinement, I was taken to see him. There were two men dressed in normal office clothes with him. I didn’t know who they were then and I still don’t know who they are today. They were shadowy figures, the type you see in spy movies lurking in dimly lit underground carparks.

One of them asked me, “How do you feel?”

I told him I was feeling alright even though I was not. I didn’t want them to know that I was physically on the verge of a breakdown. They continued to quiz me, trying to make conversation.

“You do a lot of criminal cases, right?” one of them said.

I realised they were trying to find out if they had broken me during my solitary confinement.

He continued, “If a person is charged for theft, under what section of the Penal Code would you charge him?”

“It depends on what sort of theft you are talking about,” I replied.

“What do you mean?” the other man asked.

“Simple theft is Section 379, theft from dwelling, it may be 380, and if it is theft from employer, it’s Section 381, and so on. These are the sections.” They asked me a series of questions which I answered to the best of my ability. I hoped I wasn’t making any mistakes because I really didn’t want them to think that they were breaking me.

Finally, one of them looked at the other and said, “Wah, this guy is tough, huh?” They smiled and told me I could go to the clinic, which was like a small hospital, to sleep. The thought that I would get to sleep on a bed was such a relief. I had been unable to get any regular sleep on the cold cement floor of the solitary confinement cell. I slept very soundly but not for long.

About an hour later, I was rudely woken up and instructed to dress. Feeling disoriented, I asked where I was being taken. “Don’t ask any questions,” said one of the wardens who had aroused me from my sleep. They handcuffed me behind my back. As soon as I got into the van, an Indian officer who had looked uncomfortable when he saw me unlocked the handcuffs and cuffed me in front so that I could sit more comfortably. He even lit a cigarette and gave it to me to smoke. I was very grateful to him for his kindness. I didn’t know where they were taking me but it seemed an endless journey. I couldn’t see out of the van. Many things ran through my mind as I sat there. I even wondered if I was being taken somewhere to be shot. I thought about my clients who had been locked up in Queenstown Remand Prison and whether something like this had happened to them. It finally struck me that I was being taken to Changi Prison when I detected a faint smell of the sea in the air. In those days, you could still get the scent of the sea quite a way inland because there were no tall buildings to block the sea breeze as there are now.

I figured that I was being transferred to the psychiatric ward and sure enough I was dropped off there. I asked the officer why I had been brought there. He said that I had shown signs of claustrophobia when I was in solitary confinement, and the authorities wanted to investigate and observe me further. My new wardens had been told that I had been behaving strangely. Maybe they thought there was something remiss in my Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky impersonations when I was playing mental chess in the cell. I thought that perhaps they were trying to make me mad or make me look mad.

I was given a bed in an open ward on the ground floor. It’s funny because the movie
One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
, starring Jack Nicholson, had just been screened the year before. I hadn’t seen it but my friends had described it to me. I guess my status in the ward wasn’t all that different. My sleeping companions were murderers who, because of their insanity, were kept there at the President’s pleasure—we were all guests of Benjamin Sheares. I later learnt that some of the inmates had been there since the 1950s and were absolutely stark raving mad. Some of them were so mad that they had to be handcuffed to their beds and shackled. You could see the raw, mottled skin on their wrists and ankles where they tried to wrest themselves free of their shackles.

I was confused as I looked across the ward. Some of the inmates were smiling, others singing. It seemed like I was the only sane person around, apart from the officers. It was my worst nightmare and I thought I would become mad if I stayed there too long. An officer told me that there was a certain Denis Pinder upstairs in the medical ward. The former chairman of Sime Darby was put in jail for criminal breach of trust and cheating. Pinder was in the ward because he had a problem with his leg and he was not able to walk properly.

In the midst of my ordeal, I must say I got lucky. One of the officers knew me because I had defended a few of his brothers in court for various offences. I thanked God that I had got them all acquitted. The officer walked me out of the ward and offered me a cigarette. He said: “I’m giving you some pieces of paper and this pen. Write your story down because a psychiatrist will be coming to evaluate your case. Tell him whatever you have to tell him because if he certifies you a nutcase, you’re going to spend a lot of time here. So, please do what is necessary to show that you’re not a nutcase. And if you’re caught with this pen and paper, don’t say who gave it to you because I’ll get the sack if you do.”