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SINGAPORE – One of seven people originally charged with the murder of a man in Orchard Towers pleaded guilty on Monday (December 14) to obstructing justice by discarding a bloodstained shirt belonging to an accomplice.
Loo Boon Chong, 27, admitted to throwing away the shirt that belonged to co-defendant Tan Sen Yang, who is accused of inflicting the fatal blow.
The victim, Satheesh Noel Gobidass, 31, died of a stab wound to the neck after a fight early on July 2 last year.
Loo also pleaded guilty to a second unrelated count of public gambling. Another charge of being in the company of Tan Sen Yang when he had a folding karambit knife will be taken into consideration for sentencing.
The court heard that Loo was a bartender at the time of the incident. He had been drinking with his friends on Orchard Road that morning before ending up at the Naughty Girl Club in Orchard Towers with several others, including Tan Sen Yang.
A dispute broke out between Loo’s group of friends and another group in the club, and Loo saw Tan Sen Yang pointing the knife at the other group.
The court heard that Loo tried to stop a fight that broke out near the club’s entrance, where Tan Sen Yang wounded two men with his knife.
Later, Loo took the elevator down to the ground floor with his friends, where another fight broke out with the deceased, and Tan Sen Yang allegedly inflicted a fatal wound with his knife.
Loo did not join the attack on Satheesh, but left with the group knowing that the latter was seriously injured.
READ: Evidence, Intent and Participation: AGC, Lawyers Explain Decisions Behind Murder Charge Reduction
SHIRT STAINED IN BLOOD
Loo took a taxi with Tan Sen Yang and two other people to Boon Lay Market, and Tan Sen Yang asked Loo if he could take a shower at Loo’s house. With their agreement, the couple took another taxi to Loo’s house.
After Tan Sen Yang took a shower, he asked Loo to lend him a new shirt. Loo noticed a bloodstained patch on Tan Sen Yang’s white shirt, which he knew Tan Sen Yang had worn earlier in Orchard Towers.
Loo gave Tan Sen Yang a clean shirt to change into and loaned him a pair of slippers before passing him S $ 50 at Tan’s request.
After Tan Sen Yang left his house, Loo followed in Tan Sen Yang’s footsteps in his apartment to make sure that the knife had not been left behind.
When Loo saw the bloodstained shirt in his bedroom, he picked it up and threw it in the common garbage dump.
He did so to prevent police from finding the shirt at his home and to try to avoid being implicated in Tan Sen Yang’s crime, the court heard.
Later that day, Loo heard that the Orchard Towers incident had been classified as a murder case and turned himself in along with another accomplice.
The shirt was not recovered by the police. Several months later, Loo was caught public gambling with dice on a block in Jurong West, a crime he also admitted to.
Loo will return to court for mitigation and sentencing in January. He is the fifth person to plead guilty in the Orchard Towers case.
READ: Orchard Towers Death – First Two Men Convicted for Role in Fatal Fight
READ: Death of Orchard Towers: claims of preferential treatment for different races in the sentences ‘false and without foundation’, says AGC
CO-ACCUSED IN THE CASE
Initially, seven people were charged with murder.
Co-defendant Joel Tan Yun Sheng was sentenced to four weeks in jail in March after pleading guilty to voluntarily causing harm to the victim with common intent.
Da Yuan, was sentenced to eight months in jail and six cane strokes. He pleaded guilty to willfully causing harm to the victim by kicking and beating him, and associating with Tan Sen Yang.
The only woman in the case, Natalie Siow Yu Zhen, was sentenced to five months in jail in October. Pleaded guilty to one count of willfully causing harm with common intent and associating with a person who possesses an offensive weapon.
READ: Woman originally charged with murder in Orchard Towers case receives 5 months in jail for degraded crimes
That same month, Chan Jia Xing received a conditional warning for a reduced charge of associating with a person who possessed an offensive weapon.
The cases of Tan Hong Sheng, who was released on bail in August 2019 and returned after his arrest, and Tan Sen Yang are pending, with only Tan Sen Yang still facing a capital charge.
For intentionally obstructing justice, Loo could be jailed for up to seven years, fined, or both. For playing in public, you could be jailed for up to six months, fined up to S $ 5,000, or both.
