Oriental Hotel Murder


On 6 June 1994, two Japanese tourists were robbed and attacked by two Malay men in their shared room in the Oriental Hotel in Singapore. One of them was brutally assaulted and died, while the other survived. The case was classified as murder by the police. The perpetrators were eventually caught 2 years later and they were subsequently sentenced to serve lengthy jail terms with caning for their part in the robbery and assault of the two tourists.

Murder

On 6 June 1994, two Malay men - 25-year-old Abdul Nasir bin Amer Hamsah and 32-year-old Abdul Rahman bin Arshad - barged into the room shared by two Japanese tourists - Fujii Isae, 49 and Takishita Miyoko, 56. Earlier on that day itself, the two men, who were acquaintances, went to the Oriental Hotel for a job interview when they both spotted the Japanese tour group which both Fujii and Takishita were with. Seeing this, the two men, who were short of money, decided to rob the Japanese tourists.
Both men robbed and assaulted the two women; Takishita was assaulted by Abdul Rahman and she pretended to faint to escape further injury. When Abdul Nasir attempted to escape after severely assaulting and robbing Fujii, he lost his balance and accidentally stepped onto Fujii's face as he held onto the wall to try to steady himself, causing a facial fracture which obstructed her breathing and caused her death. The men managed to get a Seiko watch worth 70,000 yen, a camera, a Japanese passport and 65,000 yen in cash. They later converted the Japanese yen and divided the loot between themselves.
Police were contacted and the case was assigned to prominent detective Richard Lim Beng Gee. The police also managed to extract fingerprints from the bloodstained palm print left behind by Abdul Nasir on the wall, but they could not trace any matching fingerprints from their database. Takishita returned to Japan the next day with her tour group. Despite the appeals for witnesses and information with offers of rewards and a police sketch of the robbers being published on newspapers, the case went unsolved for the next 18 months.

Arrests and trials

On 25 January 1996, Abdul Nasir was arrested for attempting to rob and murder a taxi driver, and while he was undergoing investigations for this particular case, Abdul Nasir's fingerprints were taken and found to match those found in Fujii Isae and Takishita Miyoko's room. Abdul Nasir later confessed that he was involved in the robbery, and named Abdul Rahman as his accomplice. Abdul Rahman was later found to be in prison serving a 20-month jail sentence for theft. Both men - Abdul Nasir and Abdul Rahman - were charged with murder on 30 January and 31 January 1996 respectively. The crime of murder was considered a capital offence at that time under Singapore law, which warrants the mandatory death penalty.
However, when further investigations revealed that it was solely Abdul Nasir who assaulted and killed Fujii, Abdul Rahman's charge was promptly reduced to one of robbery with hurt, and he pleaded guilty. On 6 June 1996, exactly two years after the incident, Abdul Rahman was sentenced to 10 years' imprisonment with 16 strokes of the cane by Judicial Commissioner Amarjeet Singh. The reduction of Abdul Rahman's charge left Abdul Nasir the sole person to face trial for murder, which he did on 24 June 1996. The trial received considerable media coverage on the Japanese news, as well as in the news of Singapore, as Japan was very upset about the incident.
At the trial, the prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Francis Tseng, argued that Abdul Nasir had intentionally stamped onto the face of Fujii Isae to prevent her from able to recognise him, and the bloodstained palm print on the wall was due to him balancing himself in order to stamp on the feet. They relied squarely on forensic evidence and Abdul Nasir's police statements to prove its case, which was in contrast to Abdul Nasir's defence that he accidentally stepped onto Fujii's face. Abdul Nasir's lawyer Subhas Anandan extensively cross-examined the interpreter who recorded the statements; the interpreter admitted on the stand that Abdul Nasir did not say the word "stamp", and instead he said the word "step", but she wrote stamp because Abdul Nasir demonstrated to his police interrogators a stamping action. According to Mr Subhas in his memoir The Best I Could, he wrote that the interpreter conceded that it was not her business to interpret the actions but to interpret what a person said.
At the end of Abdul Nasir's murder trial on 4 July 1996, the presiding judge, Judicial Commissioner Choo Han Teck accepted Abdul Nasir's defence that he accidentally stepped onto Fujii's face while he rejected the prosecution's argument that Abdul Nasir intentionally stamped onto Fujii's face to kill her; he cited in his judgement that the physically big-sized Abdul Nasir's height of 1.8 m and weight of 76 kg, compared to Fujii Isae's height of 1.5 m and weight of 51 kg, made it possible for an accidental step being the causation of the injuries on the victim's face. JC Choo also said that the prosecution's case was also not strong enough to prove the charge of murder beyond a reasonable doubt. For this, Abdul Nasir was acquitted of murder, and he was instead convicted of the other charge of robbery with hurt. He was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment and 18 strokes of the cane. The prosecution appealed against Abdul Nasir's acquittal, in which the appeal was heard before three judges of Appeal: Justice M. Karthigesu, Justice Goh Joon Seng and Justice Thean Lip Ping. However, by a split decision of 2–1, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal based on the majority decision in October 1996, with two judges - Justice Karthigesu and Justice Goh - upholding the decision of the High Court while Justice Thean dissented. This marked the first time a split decision was made in an appeal regarding a murder case in the Court of Appeal.

Aftermath

The conclusion of the murder trial did not mark an end to Abdul Nasir's ordeal, as he had to go back to court to face a kidnapping charge, which he committed during the time of his remand. On 3 February 1996, Abdul Nasir, together with his cellmate and drug trafficker Low Theng Gee briefly kidnapped two police officers for a ransom of a car, two guns, money and eight bullets before being subdued by the police reinforcements. Under Singapore law, kidnapping for ransom carries a sentence of either life imprisonment or death ; the possible guilty verdict of death for this particular crime made Abdul Nasir once again facing the gallows.
Abdul Nasir was found guilty of kidnapping on 3 March 1997. On the same day itself, despite the urgings of the prosecution to sentence Abdul Nasir to death, Justice T. S. Sinnathuray sentenced Abdul Nasir to life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane, given the fact that it was Low Theng Gee who masterminded the kidnapping plot and took upon himself to demand a ransom, and that Abdul Nasir did not harm the hostages or make any threats on their lives. However, the life sentence was ordered to run consecutively with the 18-year imprisonment sentence which Abdul Nasir received for robbing Fujii, making it a total of 38 years' imprisonment. At that time, life imprisonment in Singapore was defined as a jail term of 20 years, entitled with the usual practice of one-third remission for good behaviour.
Despite the advice of his lawyer Subhas Anandan to not appeal, Abdul Nasir took upon himself to file an appeal for the two jail terms to run concurrently, but it was dismissed on 20 August 1997. However, in the course of the appeal, Chief Justice Yong Pung How also decided that life imprisonment should be considered as a term of incarceration for the remainder of a convicted prisoner's natural life, with the possibility of parole after serving at least 20 years, instead of a jail term of 20 years. He also ruled that this amendment will apply to future cases after 20 August 1997. Abdul Nasir was not affected by this amendment, hence his life term remained as a 20-year prison sentence, and he would still be spending 38 years behind bars. If he served with good behaviour, Abdul Nasir will possibly be released in May 2021 after serving at least two-thirds of his overall sentence, should his sentence was backdated to the time of his arrest. Otherwise, it would be around October 2021. By then, Abdul Nasir would be at least 52 years old.
This case was re-enacted in a Singaporean crime show named True Files. It first aired as the penultimate episode of the show's third season on 3 January 2005. This case was also recorded in Subhas Anandan's memoir The Best I Could, which features his early life, career and his notable cases. The memoir was adapted into a TV show of the same name, which runs for two seasons. The case was re-enacted and aired as the final episode of the show's first season.
As of August 2020, Abdul Nasir's accomplice Abdul Rahman was presumably released after serving his prison sentence.