Monday, May 20, 2013

Singapore suffers from a lack of credibility over the death of American scientist Shane Todd

Ladies and Gentlemen,

Singapore and the international press are now full of the Shane Todd death inquiry. Todd, an American scientist working for a Singapore government company involved in high end scientific program which also involved a major Chinese Government company was found hanged in his Singapore apartment in mysterious circumstances.

He was a young man with a girlfriend and future. At the time of his death, he appears to have stopped working for his Singapore company, had secured another job in the US, and was planning a short holiday before commencing work and in every other respect was the most unlikely candidate for suicide, which the Singapore government claims it was.

The Singapore government’s interest in making sure of a verdict of suicide is obvious. If it is shown that Todd was murdered, as most people believe he was, that will be the end of anymore American scientists ever stepping foot in Lee Kuan Yew’s island.

Todd's family have arranged for expert witnesses who are going to testify according to the post mortem reports that he had put up a strong fight against his attackers as shown by the bruises in his hands while the Singapore government, desperate to argue for suicide, claim that those injuries resulted after he was dead. Doctors have also categorically said that he had not shown any suicidal intention whatsoever.

The Todd family has in fact managed to push for a Congressional inquiry in the US to look into his death regardless of what Singapore finds.

Following these proceedings in Singapore, one cannot fail to see that people outside Singapore are having a hard time trusting anything that Singapore says. And it must be quite clear to a Singapore observer why this is so; because the outside world has simply lost trust in the island’s legal system and the independence of their judiciary. In fact most people outside Singapore would consider the Singapore judiciary to be corrupt and beholden to the island’s Lee Kuan Yew government, and one cannot be expected to respect any claim made by such a judiciary whose reputation has been tarnished and floored.

In fact Shane Todd's mother had herself told reporters in Singapore that she feels the legal system in Singapore is "corrupt" and that in her view the Singapore legal system cannot be trusted. With a disgraceful litany of  judicial decisions of the Singapore judges clearly available on the Internet it is impossible for their Lee Kuan Yew government which is now run by the son of Lee Kuan Yew, to claim otherwise.

Singapore’s judges reputation was soiled and undermined since decades ago, firstly with the abuse of the legal system through compliant judges to destroy Lee's former political opponent JB Jeyaretnam. Through a series of trumped up charges, JB Jeyaretnam was repeatedly punished through million dollar defamation awards meted out by Lee's handpicked Kangaroo Judges, resulting in Jeyaretnam being bankrupted and being sent to jail. He has since died.

Then we have more recently Chee Soon Juan, whose fault once again was only that he was Lee's political opponent. He too was repeatedly sued for defamation of character, bankrupted and sent to jail. However recently, rather mysteriously, Lee Kuan Yew has released him form bankruptcy. Chee however is no longer the firebrand that he once was and now merely writes his blog and appears to have given up his earlier belief in the need for island wide protests to bring the father and son government down.

In my own case, other than the earlier politically motivated actions against me since 1985, in 2008 while in Singapore, I was arrested and sent to jail for 3 months for writing a blog critical of his judge Belinda Ang Saw Ean of her disgraceful judgment against Chee Soon Juan. I was also arrested for a made up claim while there that I had knocked on a police car and that for some inexplicable reason was behaving disorderly for which I had to pay a fine of $3,000.00. I was then deported from the island even though I was born there. Last year, I was also disbarred from practicing law in the island even though it made no difference to me since I live and practice law in California now. The problem that Lee Kuan Yew government faces is that all this legal system abuse is freely available on the Internet.

So any observer looking at these series of cases where the law is shamelessly stood on its head to serve the government's political ends can only come to one conclusion, which is, these judges are just downright corrupt, and willing to do anything to please their master.

And once it is found that a judge has acted corruptly, they will be looked upon forever with suspicion; because once judges are willing to abuse the law to please their Master, what guarantee is there that they will not do it again. So what guarantee is there that the Singapore judge now hearing the Shade Todd case will not once again abuse the law and claim that he committed suicide, which is the verdict the Lee Kuan Yew government wants.

It is puzzling why they failed to understand this simple fact, that once you are seen to abuse the legal system for your own ends, from that point the integrity of your judges is marred forever.

Truly, noone is going to believe anything that the Singapore judges decide on Shane Todd. And neither would any future audience ever believe in any future judgment ordered by these judges in any future case. Reputation once tarnished is almost impossible to recover.

Gopalan Nair
Attorney at Law
A Singaporean in Exile
Fremont, California, USA
Tel: 510 491 4375
Email: nair.gopalan@yahoo.com

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Shane Todd, a U.S. research engineer found hanged in his Singapore apartment, was murdered and may have been shot by a taser gun


http://www.businessweek.com/news/2013-05-21/u-dot-s-dot-doctor-tells-singapore-inquiry-shane-todd-was-murdered

Anonymous said...



Family of US scientist walks out of coroner's inquiry

"The prosecution brings forth witnesses at the last minute and we have no chance to question it. Basically we actually have lost faith in the process," Rick Todd, father of the late Shane Todd,

Todd's parents, who also plan to testify, say their son was killed in June 2012 because of his work for a Singapore electronics research institute with alleged links to a Chinese firm accused of involvement in espionage.

http://news.xin.msn.com/en/regional/family-of-us-scientist-walks-out-of-coroners-inquiry-16

Anonymous said...

LKY considers Singapore to be a Chinese country. Given the number of Chinese in S'pore (>75%) and his bias against non-Chinese S'poreans, I would have to agree.
The majority of S'pore's Chinese tend to subscribe to this belief.

Now they have to pay the price - S'pore is viewed as a proxy for the PRC.

Singapore’s state-linked Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and China’s Huawei Technologies have denied working on a project involving Todd, but confirmed they held preliminary talks on a potential research venture.

Adelstein said Shane Todd was “a very dangerous person” to the two Asian [Huawei and ZTE] companies, and asserted without offering any evidence that “they had him killed” and well-trained assassins may have been involved.


A US congressional committee last year labelled Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom firm, as potential security threats that should be excluded from US government contracts and barred from acquiring US firms.

Medical examiner Adelstein, under questioning during the live video link, said Todd could have been disabled with a taser – an electronic device designed to stun – and killed with an arm lock before being hanged.

http://www.scmp.com/news/asia/article/1242755/us-expert-says-scientist-was-murdered-singapore

Anonymous said...

The judge in the Todd case is CHAY Yuen Fatt.

The same judge who gave a lenient sentence to a Chinese PRC national who hijacked a taxi and killed a Malaysian Indian in Singapore.




-------------------
SINGAPORE - A 31-year-old man who hijacked a taxi at Changi Airport's budget terminal and ran over a cleaning supervisor was sentenced to 25 months in jail on Monday.

SINGAPORE - A man died on Saturday morning after he was hit by a hijacked taxi at the driveway in front of the Budget Terminal.

The 34-year-old Indian man, Mr Chandra Mogan, a cleaner on duty at the airport, was pronounced dead at the scene by paramedics at 7.13am.

The police received a call at about 6.50am regarding an assault by a 30-year-old Chinese national passenger on a 57-year-old taxi driver along the stretch of Airport Boulevard in front of SATS In-flight Catering Centre 1.

The passenger, who was headed for Changi Airport, started getting violent towards taxi driver Yeow Chuwee Lam during the journey, said a statement released by Comfort Delgro.

The taxi driver later activated the distress button and got out of the cab.

According to Comfort Delgro spokesperson Tammy Tan, the passenger had also stepped out and allegedly started to attack the driver.

Police said the passenger was later seen taking over the wheel and driving the taxi towards the direction of the Budget Terminal.

The taxi hit Mr Mogan along the driveway of the terminal and smashed into a glass side door next to McDonald's. A traffic light was also badly damaged.

Anonymous said...

Shane Todd -
the original autopsy report by Singaporean state pathologist Wu Jiahao.

Is Wu Jiahao from the PRC? Inquiring minds want to know.

http://sammyboy.com/showthread.php?152706-Is-SGP-State-Pathalogist-Wu-Jia-Hao-PRC


Anonymous said...


Wu Jiahao is a commie name for sure. Singaporean Chinese names will be like, Tan, Wong, Lee, Lim. This pathologist must be a commie FT working here.

Anonymous said...

Good job highlighting that the judge in the Todd case is CHAY Yuen Fatt.

Chay is the puppet who presided over the "YUAN Zhenghua" case:

(http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/man-behind-taxi-hijack-at-airport-gets-2/639216.html)

31-year-old Yuan Zhenghua was on his way to the airport on March 17, 2012, when he demanded that his cab driver stop near the terminal.

Yuan, the hijacker, crashed into a cleaner, Mr Chandra Mogan Panjanathan, who was cleaning the pedestrian walkway at the terminal. The cleaner died on the spot.

Chay failed in his duty as a judge.

Similarly, Chay will fail as a judge once more in the Todd case. A judge should be independent and disinterested. Does anyone know if any of the judges in Singapore are independent.

Lee kuan Yew said...

hey gopalan i will meet u in the cul de sac.

Anonymous said...

Anyone who has doubts that Shane Todd was murdered take a look at www.justice4shanetodd.com and go through the evidence downloads. Recall that Huawei and IME denied that Shane Todd was working on a project together ... then how come thishttp://media.wix.com/ugd//213194_005a2287ec05e89465570d753fc4c616.pdf

Very embarassing!!