In quiet, safe Singapore, people are not supposed to die like Lim Hock Soon.
The nightclub owner was gunned down at his apartment in a case that seemed to belong somewhere else -- perhaps in edgy Hong Kong and its world of triad gangsters -- not in one of Asia's cleanest and most crime-free cities, where the sound of a police siren is rarely heard.
Killing
Police say there had not been a killing like it for about six years in this city-state of more than four million people.
Today, a man nicknamed "One Eyed Dragon" goes on trial for the death of Lim, 41, on Feb. 15, last year.
Tan Chor Jin, 39, is charged under the Arms Offences Act with firing six rounds and "causing injury" to Lim, according to court records. Tan faces death by hanging if convicted at the High Court trial, which is scheduled to last 10 days.
Local press reports at the time said the killing happened about 7am that Wednesday after the gunman, dressed in black, walked in to Lim's second-floor apartment.
He tied up Lim and his Malaysian wife, Kok Pooi Leng, along with their 13-year-old daughter and a maid. Then he shot Lim dead with a pistol in the study, and ran off, newspapers reported. Lim had wounds to the head and limbs, they said.
Tan was arrested about 10 days later at a five-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur. Along with Tan, two other men and three women were arrested by police who seized six guns, 203 bullets, and 4kg of the drug ketamine, newspapers reported.
Tan is dubbed "One Eyed Dragon" because he was blinded in the right eye during a traffic accident, one report said.
Singapore's the New Paper said Tan was "believed to be a member of the Ang Soon Tong triad," but Singapore police say traditional Hong Kong-style triad groups no longer exist in the city-state.
Tan could not be reached for comment. A spokesperson for the prison service said it does not grant requests for interviews with prisoners.
The victim, Lim, lived in an ordinary public housing estate like most Singaporeans but his work brought him into a different circle.
The Las Vegas nightclub, in which newspapers said he was a partner, shouts its presence with a giant neon sign in a sedate district of highrise hotels.
In a November 2003 interview with the New Paper, two months after the plush Las Vegas club opened, Lim said that to book any of the karaoke club's 31 VIP rooms, clients had to spend at least SG$3,000 (US$1,952) a night just on liquor.
Dispute
The Straits Times cited sources in the nightclub business as saying the tattooed Lim was involved in illegal betting and his death involved a dispute over money.
Police have declined to discuss the case while it is before the courts.
Lim's family still lives in the home where he died, said a woman who runs a small shop in the complex of apartment blocks.
Behind a black metal security gate, the white door of Lim's apartment opened a crack when reporters knocked. A petite girl stood in a room lit dimly from an open side window.
She asked who was there, then quickly closed the door again when she learned that reporters had come.
On either side of the door, red stickers carried Chinese wishes for peace, and protection.
PHISHING: The con might appear convincing, as the scam e-mails can coincide with genuine messages from Apple saying you have run out of storage For a while you have been getting messages from Apple saying “your iCloud storage is full.” They say you have exceeded your storage plan, so documents are no longer being backed up, and photos you take are not being uploaded. You have been resisting Apple’s efforts to get you to pay a minimum of ￡0.99 (US$1.33) a month for more storage, but it seems that you cannot keep putting off the inevitable: You have received an e-mail which says your iCloud account has been blocked, and your photos and videos would be deleted very soon. To keep them you need
For two decades, researchers observed members of the Ngogo chimpanzee group of Kibale National Park in Uganda spend their days eating fruits and leaves, resting, traveling and grooming in their tropical rainforest abode, but this stable community then fractured and descended into years of deadly violence. The researchers are now describing the first clearly documented example of a group of wild chimpanzees splitting into two separate factions, with one launching a series of coordinated attacks against the other. Adult males and infants were targeted, with 28 deaths. “Biting, pounding the victim with their hands, dragging them, kicking them — mostly adult males,
The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims. The demolitions came after Israeli Minister of Defense Israel Katz called for the destruction of
SUPERFAN: The Japanese PM played keyboard in a Deep Purple tribute band in middle school and then switched to drums at university, she told the British rock band Legendary British rock band Deep Purple yesterday made Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s day with a brief visit to their high-profile superfan as they returned to the nation they first toured more than half a century ago. Takaichi’s reputation as an amateur drummer, and a fan of hard rock and heavy metal has been well documented, and she has referred to Deep Purple as one of her favorite bands along with the likes of Black Sabbath and Iron Maiden. “You are my god,” a giddy Takaichi said in English to Deep Purple drummer Ian Paice, presenting him with a set of made-in-Japan
RSS