2019 Orchard Towers murder

[3] The seventh and final suspect, Tan Sen Yang, who was identified to be the one stabbing Satheesh to death,[4] was convicted of murder, and jailed for life with caning (12 strokes) on 25 April 2024.

[5] Born on 13 February 1988, Satheesh Noel Gobidass was a Singaporean chemist of ethnic Indian descent who was married with two children: a ten-year-old son and four-year-old daughter at the time he died.

She remembered an incident where she was heavily pregnant at one point, Satheesh helped her open the door to a GrabCar and took care of her then toddler-aged son.

[9] On the early morning of 2 July 2019, at Orchard Towers, a fight broke out between Satheesh and a group of seven people, with four of these members - 27-year-old Tan Sen Yang (陈森阳 Chén Sēnyáng), 26-year-old Joel Tan Yun Sheng (陈云胜 Chén Yúnshèng), 26-year-old Ang Da Yuan (洪达远 Hóng Dáyuǎn) and 22-year-old Natalie Siow Yu Zhen (萧玉珍 Xiāo Yùzhēn) - participating in the fight with Satheesh (who earlier came with his friends for drinks at a pub at the Orchard Towers).

All seven of them would later be arrested for the alleged murder of Satheesh Noel Gobidass, with some have voluntarily surrendered to the police at one of the members Joel Tan's coordination.

[11] After the crime was reported, the police were called in and within 12 hours, the seven suspects were arrested in varied locations all over Singapore; a female friend who accompanied the group of seven at the time of the murder was also caught but subsequently released.

[15] Another member, Tan Hong Sheng, was also revealed to have two previous convictions for violent offences and possession of weapons and had undergone both a jail term at a juvenile home and reformative training in 2011 and 2016 respectively.

A week after their arrests, three of the seven members - Loo Boon Chong, Chan Jia Xing and Tan Hong Sheng - had their murder charges reduced.

[24] A date was scheduled for three of the members - Loo Boon Chong, Chan Jia Xing and Tan Hong Sheng - to return to court.

It was revealed that Tan was involved in several violent incidents, and two of them, including the amputation of a woman's finger and permanent disfigurement of a man, occurred minutes prior to him fighting and killing Satheesh Noel Gobidass.

In their trial, the first two members - 26-year-old Joel Tan Yun Sheng and 26-year-old Ang Da Yuan - pleaded guilty to lower charges of voluntarily causing hurt to the victim.

[16] The prosecution sought a sentence of at least five years in prison with 12 strokes of the cane after emphasising that Tan had committed two earlier rioting offences and the viciousness of the attack, as well as his criminal record.

On the other hand, the defence counsel, led by Josephus Tan, argued for a lighter sentence of between 45 and 50 months' jail and between nine and 12 strokes of the cane on account that their client was merely trying to stop the fight and not taking part in it.

[38][39] On 3 October 2023, more than four years after the Orchard Towers incident, 32-year-old Tan Sen Yang officially stood trial for one count of murdering Satheesh Noel Gobidass.

Justice Aedit Abdullah of the High Court presided the hearing while the prosecution was led by Deputy Public Prosecutors (DPP) Hay Hung Chun, Lim Shin Hui and Benedict Yeo of the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC).

However, Tan was deemed mentally fit to plead and stand trial as these conditions did not have any contributory link to his alleged offences, and he also did not have an unsound mind at the time of the killing.

Justice Abdullah stated in his verdict that he was satisfied that Tan indeed intentionally inflicted the fatal injury on Satheesh and it thus constituted as an act of murder, and the defence of diminished responsibility was also rejected in light of the absence of any contributory link between the conditions and his offence.

Justice Abdullah also touched on the need to consider Tan's previous convictions, including voluntarily causing hurt in 2011 as well as affray and criminal intimidation in 2014, but he found no initiative to have them taken into account during sentencing, given the length of time that had passed and the difference in severity with the present murder charge.

Justice Abdullah also referred to the case of Muhammad Salihin Ismail, who was originally jailed nine years for causing grievous hurt to his stepdaughter (who died from abdominal injuries) before being convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison by the Court of Appeal; the judge noted that with reference to Salihin's case, Tan had no legal basis to claim he never intend to inflict fatal wounds specifically on the neck, as he had the intent to stab and slash Satheesh on whichever part of the body the knife was bound to land onto during the stabbing, which still constituted as an act of murder.

[51] In response to such allegations, the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) said such media posts have the "potential to disrupt racial harmony in Singapore, and cause irreversible divisions in our communities" and amount to contempt of court, in addition to refuting these allegatory claims.

[54] Some lawyers also explained that the reduction of the charges were likely due to investigations determining that all seven offenders in this case did not share the common intention with each other to cause the fatal injury on the victim, and this would also happen if they were found to play differing roles in the turn of events that ended in Satheesh's death.

[55] In October 2020, while Loo Boon Chong, Tan Sen Yang and Tan Hong Sheng were still pending trial, Subhas Nair, a Singaporean rapper-musician, made claims on social media that racism and Chinese privilege played a part in allowing one of the members, Chan Jia Xing, to be given a conditional warning for the charge of consorting an armed person and escaped punishment for murder.