On the Christmas Eve night of 24 December 2005, 41-year-old Myanmar national Thein Naing was brutally assaulted and murdered by a group of three Malaysians, who robbed him of S$40, on a footpath along Upper Boon Keng Road.
Eu Ah Bar, the night watchman of Boon Keng Primary School, later told police that on the previous night of Christmas Eve, hours before the discovery of Thein's corpse, he saw a group of three men, who all appeared to be pushing and kicking something on the footpath along the fence of the school, after he was alerted by the barking sounds of his dog and therefore witnessed the sighting, which he presumed as an issue of older boys playing with each other.
[25] On 10 January 2006, days after the four suspects were charged with his murder, Thein Naing's body was cremated after a funeral, and his ashes and belongings were returned to his family in Myanmar.
[1] As for Benedict Inyang Anak Igal, the fourth perpetrator of the crime, he was found guilty of a reduced charge of robbery with hurt and sentenced to five years in prison and 12 strokes of the cane before the trio went on trial for Thein Naing's murder.
[1] In their defence, the men denied that they had the intention to cause Thein Naing's death, and according to them, the trio and the fourth man Benedict were having drinks at Geylang on the night of the murder, and as they were short of money, they decided to go and commit robbery.
Although he accepted that the knife wounds were not fatal, Justice Kan nonetheless made a finding that the trio had intentionally inflicted the serious head injuries on Thein when they kicked him repeatedly, such that the head injuries caused were sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to cause death, and these were inflicted while in furtherance of their common intention, there were sufficient grounds to return with a verdict of murder in the trio's case.
[31][32] The Court of Appeal, having heard their cases, found that there was no doubt that the trio had intentionally inflicted the fatal head injuries on Thein Naing for the purpose of committing robbery.
[33][34] One of the appellate judges, Justice V K Rajah, commented in his own words while dismissing the appeals, "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that stomping on a person's head could be fatal".
[38][39] Human rights lawyer M Ravi also posted that the death penalty for the trio should be commuted and claimed that there was no fair trial for the three Malaysians and a fourth convicted killer Tan Chor Jin, who was sentenced to hang for fatally shooting a nightclub owner after he claimed trial while unrepresented by counsel;[40] Tan was put to death on 9 January 2009 after his petition for clemency was rejected.
[41] On 9 April 2008, the Singapore government responded to the United Nations Human Rights Office (OHCHR) that the death penalty was not arbitrarily or unfairly imposed in the cases of Tan and the three Thein Naing murderers, stating that the four men had been accorded full due process and except for Tan who represented himself, the trio had been represented by legal counsel throughout and they emphasized that the international law did not prohibit the mandatory death penalty and it was only reserved for the most serious of crimes, and the use of capital punishment in Singapore was what contributes to its reputation as one of the safest countries in the world.