Jurong fishing port murders
On 2 November 1980, two people – 31-year-old fish dealer Lee Cheng Tiong and 16-year-old Teo Keng Siang – were brutally murdered by one or more unknown assailants. The murders remained unsolved for two years before a suspect was finally nabbed in connection to the killings.
The suspect Beh Meng Chai, who was Malaysian, confessed that a total of three people, including himself, were responsible for the murders and gave information about the identities of his two accomplices, resulting in the arrest of Sim Min Teck, who was pointed out by Beh as the one who, together with the third accomplice Chng Meng Joo, killed Teo and Lee.
In the subsequent court proceedings regarding the case, Beh was sentenced to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane after the prosecution reduced the double murder charges to manslaughter in view of Beh's cooperation with the police and willingness to testify in the trial of Sim, who was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in a separate trial. The third and final suspect Chng remains on the run for the Jurong fishing port murders.
Murders
On the morning of 2 November 1980, an 18-year-old fishery worker discovered his boss and another boy dead inside their company office at Jurong fishing port.The deceased boss was Lee Cheng Tiong, a 31-year-old fish dealer, and the other victim was 16-year-old Teo Keng Siang, the employee of another fish dealer. It was established through the police investigations and witness accounts that Teo went to the office that day on his boss's request to pass some money in Malaysian currency to Lee, but it turned out that Lee and Teo were killed. It was also the normal practice for Lee and other fish dealers working in the area to exchange their foreign money out of their profits made from their respective fishery businesses. The police did not rule out robbery as a motive for the murder. The murders of Teo and Lee were the eighth case of murder to happen within the week itself, where seven were reported before the present case, and the police sent public appeals for information to solve these eight cases.
Teo's father, who had one daughter aside from Teo, told the press that he was saddened over the death of his only son, who was the eldest of his two children. Teo's father stated that after his son dropped out of secondary school at age 13 due to his poor grades, he went to work in various jobs before Teo himself decided to join a fishery business as an employee, despite the objections by his father to be in this occupation, which Teo joined for only three weeks before his murder.
Professor Chao Tzee Cheng, the senior forensic pathologist, performed an autopsy on the victims. He stated in his autopsy report that there were a total of nine stab wounds on Lee's body, and two chest wounds were the main cause of Lee's death. Professor Chao also revealed there were four knife wounds on Teo's corpse, all of which directed at his chest and penetrated his right lung, and thus caused Teo to die. He also stated that there was a cut to Teo's left finger, suggesting that Teo had put up his left hand to defend himself against his attackers. Professor Chao determined that the murders of Teo and Lee were committed by at least two or more persons unknown, given the fact that both victims, who were both of tall and huge body build, had been brutally overpowered and killed within the small confinement of Lee's little fishery office.
Arrests
On 5 April 1982, two years after the murders of Teo Keng Siang and Lee Cheng Tiong, the police finally had a breakthrough in their investigations, as they received information that a man suspected to be involved in the murders was residing in Singapore. Three days later, Inspector Yeo Bak Sek and his team of officers arrested the suspect, a 22-year-old Perak-born Malaysian named Beh Meng Chai, at his rented flat at Ho Ching Road. Beh was later charged with murder.Upon his arrest, Beh confessed that he was involved in the case, but he stated he was not alone in the crime. He told police that he and his two Malaysian friends Chng Meng Joo and Sim Min Teck, with whom he grew up in the same kampong, went to Jurong fishing port to rob Lee, who used to be Beh's employer before he left to become a welder, and Beh also revealed that both Chng and Sim were hiding in Malaysia. With the crucial information they received, the Singapore Police Force sought help from the Malaysian authorities, and on 14 July 1983, the Royal Malaysia Police arrested one of the two fugitives, 20-year-old fisherman Sim Min Teck, at his hometown in Kuantan, Pahang. Sim was extradited back to Singapore on 23 July 1983, and he was charged with murder the same day he arrived back to Singapore.
Trial of Beh Meng Chai
Reduction of murder charges and plea of guilt
On 8 October 1984, Beh first stood trial for killing the two victims at the Jurong fishing port. By then, after some representations from the defence, the prosecution decided to, out of strategic reasons, reduce the double murder charges to lower charges of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, which also meant manslaughter in Singapore legal terms. It was done on account that Beh fully cooperated with the police, and that he was willing to act as the prosecution's witness against Sim Min Teck in his upcoming trial for the two charges of murder. Beh pleaded guilty to two charges of manslaughter, and another two charges of armed robbery for stealing the money from both Lee and Teo after their deaths.The prosecution, led by Glenn Knight, submitted that the maximum sentence of life imprisonment should be imposed for the most severe charge of manslaughter in Beh's case, and he also sought the maximum terms for the other two charges of armed robbery. Knight submitted that other than Beh's considerably smaller role in the killings and his willingness to testify against Sim, there were no other mitigating factors in the case, given that the killings were committed in an unusually brutal manner and cruelly executed in the course of robbery, and thus on account of his responsibility for the killings committed by the trio, Beh deserved the maximum punishments the law could impose in accordance to the offences he was convicted for.
Sentencing of Beh
On the same day Beh was convicted, the trial judge Lai Kew Chai delivered his verdict regarding Beh’s sentence. He stated in the judgement that while he accepted the defence lawyer M Puvanendram's mitigation plea that Beh did not stab the victims, his mere age of twenty at the time of the crime, his full cooperation with the police and his contribution to the arrest of the principal offender Sim, he nonetheless stated that the crimes were brutal and a harsh punishment should be imposed to reflect the gravity and severity of the offences. Justice Lai pointed out that based on Beh's confession, the other evidence and the common intention he shared with the two men to commit the fatal robberies, Beh would have been held guilty of murder in the eyes of law regardless of whether he took part in the stabbing or not. Justice Lai personally addressed to Beh that he was very fortunate that the charges of murder were reduced, such that he would not face the death penalty as a result of the prosecution's exercise of their prerogative to proceed with the amended charges.As such, Justice Lai imposed the maximum term of life imprisonment with four strokes of the cane for each of the double charges of manslaughter, and the maximum term of ten years with ten strokes of the cane for each of the double armed robbery charges. In total, 24-year-old Beh Meng Chai received two life sentences and two ten-year sentences, as well as a total of 28 strokes of the cane. However, the judge ordered that Beh should serve all his four jail terms concurrently, and he noted that the law restricts a convict from receiving more than the maximum of 24 strokes in a single trial. As a result, Beh’s number of cane strokes was reduced from the original 28 strokes to 24 strokes, and he would only serve a single term of life imprisonment behind bars.
By the laws of Singapore back in 1984, life imprisonment was considered as a jail term of twenty years with the usual one-third remission for good behaviour, before the landmark appeal of Abdul Nasir Amer Hamsah on 20 August 1997 led to the definition of life imprisonment being changed to a sentence that lasts the remainder of the prisoner's natural life, with effect from the day after the appeal ruling.
Trial of Sim Min Teck
Arguments against proceeding of murder charge
On 18 March 1985, 23-year-old Sim Min Teck stood trial for the double charges of murder for killing Teo Keng Siang and Lee Cheng Tiong. Defence lawyer Edwin Chan represented Sim as his lawyer, while Glenn Knight, who earlier prosecuted Beh Meng Chai for manslaughter, was assigned as the trial prosecutor of the case, and the two trial judges presiding the trial were L P Thean and Abdul Wahab Ghows. Sim pleaded not guilty to the charges of intentional murder at the start of his trial.At the start of Sim's trial however, Sim's lawyer argued that the prosecution should not proceed with the original charges of murder against his client on the account that the key prosecution witness Beh Meng Chai had been convicted of manslaughter after the amendment of his original murder charges before trial, and that the trial judge had found Beh and the other accomplices in question had the common intention of committing the offences Beh was convicted of. However, the prosecution argued that the trial judge Lai Kew Chai had emphasized that the offence which was committed in furtherance of the trio's common intention was murder and although Beh was in the end convicted of manslaughter, his actions was also part of the offence of murder committed by one or more of them three robbers in question and there was no finding by the prosecution or judge that all the three men had committed manslaughter by common intention. The judges therefore overruled the defence's arguments and allowed the prosecution to proceed with the original murder charges against Sim for killing both Lee and Teo.
Also, Sim raised several allegations that his statements to the police were not made voluntarily, and later, these allegations were also dismissed by the judges, who both admitted the statements as evidence.