Court debates if judicial mercy should be invoked for dying convict
SINGAPORE — A district judge has slammed prosecutors for their “manifestly excessive” request of 10 years’ corrective training for a dying criminal, and urged them to consider judicial mercy as an option.
Lim Jit Kiat, 42, was convicted of forging a S$1.36 million cheque as payment for kinky sex acts, but was later diagnosed with end-stage renal failure, needing dialysis thrice a week. His defence lawyer argued that the life expectancy of such patients was about five years, and pleaded for judicial mercy to be exercised.
However, the prosecution, citing Lim’s history of convictions for theft, cheating and forgery over the past 20-odd years, wanted him locked up for a decade.
The unusual circumstances of the case were debated in court yesterday, with both prosecution and defence reaching an impasse on the sentence.
Lim’s latest brush with the law started when he posted an advertisement online on May 16, 2014, in search of males aged 18 to 45 to provide “special services” to male clients. The next day, a 28-year-old Chinese national responded to the ad. Lim, who had been diagnosed with sexual sadism disorder, then lied that he had a Korean client willing to pay S$1.2 million to carry out deviant sex acts with the man.
They met about three hours later in Geylang and checked into a hotel together, where Lim — masquerading as the Korean client — used three bamboo canes to hit the victim’s buttocks and burned him with cigarettes. The victim feigned enjoyment, and Lim raised the reward to S$1.36 million.
When the victim tried to cash the cheque the next day, a bank officer noticed that the signature did not match the bank’s records and a police report was lodged. It turned out that Lim had issued a cheque from his father’s cheque book.
In an earlier hearing, Lim pleaded guilty to forgery, while two other charges of theft and cheating were taken into consideration.
Yesterday, defence lawyer Timothy Ng argued that Lim was too ill to re-offend, and pleaded for judicial mercy to be invoked, where a court gives a more lenient sentence due to exceptional circumstances. He said that four weeks’ imprisonment would be appropriate.
In rebuttal, Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Tan Zhongshan cited an Institute of Mental Health report stating that Lim was likely to re-offend. Lim had previously served a five-year jail term, and a 10-year corrective training sentence for cheating offences, among others. DPP Tan said: “Given that prisons are able to manage (Lim’s) medical condition, he doesn’t qualify for judicial mercy.”
However, District Judge Low Wee Ping said: “Even if the person is dying and the prison says it has the capacity to provide hospice care, it doesn’t deal with the issue of judicial mercy … It’s the pain and suffering of the illness, and you have to receive treatment.”
He added that a decade of corrective training was “manifestly excessive even without the issue of judicial mercy”.
Lim is out on bail, and the case will be heard again on June 30. VALERIE KOH
