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SINGAPORE – As a child in Nigeria, Ilechukwu Uchechukwu Chukwudi witnessed a massacre in his hometown of Wukari, during which he was close to being killed, and subsequently suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
So when he was arrested in Singapore by anti-narcotics officers for drug trafficking in 2011, after unknowingly handling luggage containing drugs, Ilechukwu overestimated the threat to his life and wove a web of lies in an attempt to save his skin. He felt that the officers’ raid on his hotel room was akin to “war” and “chaos.”
Ilechukwu was so distraught over the arrest and his charge, which carried the death penalty, that he refused to eat and drink three times when it was offered to him. And he believed that lying would get him out of his traumatic situation.
But his lies and omissions to law enforcement officials caused Ilechukwu to spend nine years behind bars.
On Thursday (September 17), Ilechukwu, now 34, was finally acquitted of his trafficking charge after a government psychiatrist previously discovered that he was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Symptoms (PTSS) when his statements containing blatant falsehoods were recorded. .
The Court of Appeal, in a 4-1 split ruling, found that there was “a rational and credible connection between (his) PTSS and the lies and omissions in his statements (to law enforcement officials).”
Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, along with Appellate Justices Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash, and Chief Justice Chao Hick Tin made up the majority of the Supreme Court that ruled in favor of acquittal.
However, Appellate Judge Tay Yong Kwang, who disagreed, said at his trial that the “excuses for Ilechukwu’s lies were totally unsatisfactory and unbelievable and there was no acceptable explanation for the lies unless he realized his guilt ”.
About the case
On November 13, 2011, Ilechukwu arrived in Singapore with a black suitcase that a friend had given him to pass on to someone else. Inside, unbeknownst to him, there was no less than 1,963.3 g of methamphetamine.
At the airport in Lagos, Nigeria, the suitcase underwent a physical check and X-ray scan without incident. When he arrived at Changi airport, Ilechukwu was detained for questioning before being released. The luggage also underwent an X-ray scan and a physical check, again without incident.
Ilechukwu then went to a hotel in Chinatown, but he didn’t have enough Singapore dollars. He left the suitcase in the lobby for 12 minutes in search of a money changer.
Later that night, he was contacted to pass the bag to a woman, Hamidah Awang. He met Hamidah and passed the bag to him in his car and then returned to his hotel.
Hamidah was arrested at Woodlands Checkpoint later that night with the black luggage in her car. Officers opened the sides of the bag to reveal the stash of drugs.
The next morning, Ilechukwu was arrested by a group of officers from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) who raided his hotel room.
Several statements from him were recorded on that day and in the following days, in which he told a series of lies and also omitted information.
Three years after his arrest, on November 5, 2014, the High Court cleared Ilechukwu of his trafficking charge after the judge accepted his evidence that he had come to Singapore to buy electronic products for his business – he had brought with him $ 5,000 and a The director of the Singapore company testified that he had arranged a Singapore visa for Ilechukwu.
The High Court Judge, Judge Lee Seiu Kin, also found that Ilechukwu’s conduct was inconsistent with knowledge of the drugs. The judge also noted that the drugs “were so well hidden that (Ilechukwu) could not have known unless they had been told.”
But the prosecution appealed the acquittal and Ilechukwu remained in preventive detention.
The following year, on June 29, 2015, the Court of Appeal annulled the acquittal. The key question considered by the supreme court, made up of Justices Chao, Phang and Tay, was whether Ilechukwu lied for innocent reasons or because he knew telling the truth would link him to the crime.
The court found that his lies were more consistent with having had knowledge of the drugs prior to his arrest. The high court said at the time: “It is clear to us that he had deliberately lied to distance himself from the drugs in the black luggage, the existence of which he knew. Simply put, there is no acceptable explanation for lies, unless you realize your guilt. To suggest that (Ilechukwu) was justified in lying as a defensive move would be to change reason and logic. “
Following the conviction of the Court of Appeal, the case was returned to the High Court for sentencing.
It was during this stage, in March 2017, that a psychiatric report indicated that Ilechukwu suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and that his symptoms were triggered after CNB agents told him that he was facing the death penalty and that the Post-traumatic stress disorder led him to lie in his statements.
In light of the important new evidence, Ilechukwu applied to the higher court the following month to reevaluate his sentence.
In August of that year, in a rare move, the Court of Appeal agreed that the psychiatric report posed a “strong probability” that the conviction previously made by the higher court was incorrect and would allow the case to be reopened. The High Court then asked the High Court to determine the extent to which Ilechukwu was affected by PTSD when he gave his statements to the CNB, among other things, before he heard the case.
Four psychiatrists in total testified about PTSD in Superior Court. In July last year, the court determined that Ilechukwu suffered from PTSS at the time she gave her statements. Then the case returned to the higher court.
On Thursday, the Court of Appeals said in the majority ruling: “Having analyzed the totality of the evidence, apart from the lies and omissions, we find that it is more likely than not that (Ilechukwu) did not know that there were drugs in the black luggage.
“(He) has consistently maintained that he came to Singapore for a business purpose and (an acquaintance) asked him to help him pass the black luggage, which was checked several times, and we find that both claims are plausible and credible. , seen in the light of all circumstances …
“The image that emerges from the evidence is that (Ilechukwu) had misjudged (a friend and acquaintance) and naively believed that he was doing a simple favor in exchange for the promised business contacts. Unknowingly, they had tricked him into transporting drugs on their behalf to the (acquaintance’s) contact in Singapore. “
Judge Chao, who wrote the majority judgment, added that if the psychiatric evidence had been before him and Judge Phang while they were sitting in the high court bench earlier, they would not have overturned Judge Lee’s acquittal.
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