Monday, July 11, 2011

Buffoons Beget Buffoons

"Dangerous criminals" corralled by SPF at Bedok Division Station
80 youths - some as young as 12 - were arrested by the Singapore Police Force on Thursday night in the course of a anti-loansharking operation. Some were handcuffed like dangerous criminals and bundled into patrol cars for the traumatic ride to the lock-up. Their transgression - responding to an online ad seeking students to hand out fliers. The father of a 13-year old joining worried parents at the Bedok Police Division station said, "It was basically chaos. Imagine waiting at a police station as your children are being questioned by the police."

Some were released only on posting bail. They have real cause for concern. Technically, the kids can be prosecuted for "assisting in the operations of illegal moneylenders". This is what happens when police go by the letter of the law, instead of the spirit of the law. Even if the fliers were for a new restaurant, and subsequently someone died of food poisoning, the youths could be held as accessories to murder by these clowns. This is what happens when the law enforcers can't tell the good guys from the bad guys, the victims from the victimised.

A police spokesman said the kids were handcuffed "to ensure the safety and security of both suspects and officers would not be compromised as there was a large number of suspects." Armed with baton, gun and taser, and the cop is frightened by a 12 year old in school uniform? Still clueless about the looming public relations disaster and greater social outrage, Commander of Bedok Police Division, Deputy Assistant Commissioner of Police (DAC) Teo Chun Ching had the cheek to add, "Parents should be mindful of their children's activities and educate them so that they do not fall prey to these unscrupulous criminals." To that we should add, the minister in charge should be mindful of the police's idiotic antics and educate the public so they do not fall prey to their abuse of authority.

Meanwhile, police released a 600-worded statement in response to the criticism about the handling of Ismil Kadar's wrongful conviction by saying they will motivate officers "to work harder to collect such evidence at the scene of crime". Not a word was mentioned about the more serious observation by the appeals court, "To our consternation, three vital items of evidence were not provided to counsel for the appellants by the prosecution until very late in the proceedings."

And this morning, Aedit Abdullah wrote to the press as Chief Prosecutor for the Attorney General, to complain they had bad press.
Listen, dummy: Ismil was convicted of murder. His lawyer appealled. Else he would have been hanged. Did you file for the appeal? You expect us to believe the high and mighty prosecutor, meaning you, will act on his behalf after stumbling across your own boo-boo?

Aedit admits, even with fresh evidence in hand, they persisted to charge Ismil with committing robbery with hurt. Hello, Ismil was not in the room! His transgression was for selling a stolen mobile phone - have you even read the case notes?

One suspects that most of those blue uniformed must have a IQ lower than Ismil's 75. The tragedy is that the Police Commisioners will be lining up in droves for the National Day Awards. We need our version of Operation Bersih, and clean the crap from the system. Maybe we should hang our flag upside down this August, that's an international sign of distress - SOS - Save Our Singapore.

15 comments:

  1. I doubt our version of Operation Bersih will happen in Sg during my life time, LOL!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Even when they are wrong, they have to be right! Save our Singapore indeed from these self-righteous, EQ-deficient public servants!

    ReplyDelete
  3. What is wrong to right a wrong.

    ReplyDelete
  4. hahah, I agree with you..think the upsidedown flags were a deliberate attempt for an SOS shouts!!! So many "stupiak" cases already from SPF and I don't know what to say..don't they have like 9 dead bodies of cases to solve here instead of harrassing students? There is a serial pattern here in the short 6 months and the police would be daft to think all are merely suicide cases. Again, they would rather attack people at cafe on black sunday -- real bunch of nincompoops.

    ReplyDelete
  5. The loan sharks towkays are looking at the news and laughing at the police.

    ReplyDelete
  6. You do know not all those kids didn't know they were working for loansharks, right?

    On handcuffing - If it's really such a problem, the lawmakers should be petitioned so arrested persons can only be handcuffed under a restricted set of circumstances.

    Also, there is a difference between the police and the prosecutors. The prosecutors provided the evidence late into the proceedings, not the police. So I don't think the police were evading responsibility by not mentioning this in their statement - they were not responsible for that to begin with.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Either standards are dropping OR

    We were misled into thinking we had a world class system right from the beginning.

    The closet must be overflowing. Skeletons keep dropping out of the closet everyday.

    ReplyDelete
  8. .. Justice for all7/11/2011 4:39 PM

    The Chief Prosecutor (Aedit Abdullah) had given the facts a big spin, as though the Prosecutor was magnanimous enough to change their stand shortly after the High Court judge had, in April 2009, sentenced Ismil to death, by offering to reduce the crime to one of "robbery with hurt". Nothing is further from the truth.

    At paragraph 36 of the Court of Appeal's decision, it was stated:
    "The present appeal
    36 We first heard this appeal on 21 January 2011. The Prosecution’s position during that hearing was that both the Appellants were guilty of murder committed in furtherance of their common intention to commit robbery. Both Appellants, on the other hand, maintained that it was Muhammad alone who carried out both the robbery and killing. During the course of that hearing, it appeared to us that the Prosecution
    had not adequately considered various issues that were central to the appeal. We therefore adjourned the hearing to 15 April 2011, and directed the Prosecution to address the court on, inter alia, the following points:
    (a) Was s 34 of the Penal Code applied correctly by the Judge?
    (b) If there was only one assailant, what was the position of the other person, ie, the accomplice,in the light of Daniel Vijay s/o Katherasan and others v Public Prosecutor [2010] 4 SLR 1119 (“Daniel Vijay”)?
    (c) Who was the real assailant in the Prosecution’s view?

    37 The Prosecution was granted leave to file further written submissions to address the above points, and this was subsequently done on 4 March 2011. The Appellants were also granted leave to respond to the Prosecution’s further written submissions. Counsel for Ismil did so and filed written submissions on 18 March 2011. Counsel for Muhammad confirmed that they would not be filing any written submissions, and that Muhammad’s position was unchanged from the position that he had adopted at the hearing on
    21 January 2011.

    38 The Prosecution’s further written submissions and oral submissions at the hearing on 15 April 2011 revealed that the Prosecution had changed its position yet again. In this regard, the Prosecution, in essence, accepted that the Judge erred in convicting Ismil jointly of murder (see [3] above). However, the Prosecution submitted that Ismil should not be acquitted completely, but should still be found guilty of an offence, viz, robbery with hurt pursuant to s 394 read with s 34 of the Penal Code. Under this latest position of the Prosecution, Muhammad alone would be guilty of murder."

    So, exactly at which stage did the Prosecution finally inform Ismil's lawyer that they had changed their mind about Ismil's guilt? From the judgment, it looks like the Prosecution only decided in March 2011 when it filed its written submissions, i.e. almost 6 yers after Ismil was arrested. So, from April 2009 onwards till April 2011, Ismil still lived with the gallows hanging over his head.

    The judgment makes for very gripping reading. Once it is available to the public, everyone interesting in how the police and prosecution does their work should read it. It makes for very disturbing reading.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Either that or someone high above has lost passion & purposely trying to do a bad job so to be "fired and retired" with lump sum pension waiting..wink*

    ReplyDelete
  10. matter of time this police PR exercise by Teo Chun Ching from Bedok police division will be rewarded. Lee hsien loong should take note and field this bugger for the 2016 GE, putting him in TP ward together with Chan Chun Sing.

    does anyone have a mug shot of this Teo bugger, to provide readers some form of comparison to Chan CS ?
    ps: just to confirm both look and act like clowns.

    ReplyDelete
  11. fucking angry with this case

    ReplyDelete
  12. From (1) Mas Selamat, (2) bomb removal (3) escape of the parking ticket offender (4) TPL delayed investigation, (5) Ismil Kadar (6) 9 dead bodies in first 7 mths of the year and now to this (7) handcuffing of students. I think the people are just about HAD enough with the incompetency of the Singapore Police Force over the last 1 year or so. They ran out of their in-rotting excuses just like PUB did with their eventual glaring stupidity and arrogance.

    Either Home Affairs take its own house in order with a major shake up or the Minister running for it make way. After all, we need to ask “what kind of message are we trying to send to the public here” when they can't even get their basic priorities right

    ReplyDelete
  13. Sad Singaporean7/12/2011 10:27 AM

    Poor Singaporeans. I feel sad that our country has deteriorated to this state. Ordinary folks are unjustly abused and some people are unjustly rewarded.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Remember Mr Malik who posted a comment on his Facebook taking Dr Vivian Balakrishnan to task for the YOG mass food poisoning scandal on 15 August 2010 which caused 21 volunteers to suffer from diarrhoea after taking food provided by the YOG caterer? He was arrested at his workplace by three plain-clothes police officers from Bedok Police Division whose Commander was none other than DAC Teo Chun Ching.
    Teo, 36, has just been moved to the Criminal Investigation Department as its deputy director. Taking over Teo's place at Bedok is 31 year old Deputy Assistant Commissioner How Kwang Hwee. All those fancy titles for such buffoonery.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Another floating body found in another reservoir.
    And homicides cases are rising.
    Why?
    How?

    ReplyDelete