• Lim Hong Liang, 57, was convicted of hiring hitmen to attack a man and was jailed in 2019
• He appealed to the High Court, which ordered a retrial
• This was because a police statement, disclosed at a late stage, contradicted testimony from a key prosecution witness
• The retrial had yet to be held when prosecutors decided to withdraw Lim’s charge
• Lim was instead given a conditional warning and ordered to compensate his victim

SINGAPORE — A 57-year-old businessman, who was previously convicted of hiring hitmen in 2016 to slash the face of his mistress’ boyfriend, was granted a discharge not amounting to an acquittal on Wednesday (July 14).

This latest development in the rollercoaster case, which saw Lim Hong Liang sentenced to six years’ jail in 2019 after a trial, then getting a retrial on appeal, means that he will not be prosecuted for the same offence for now.

However, the charge against him — conspiring to cause grievous hurt to Mr Joshua Koh Kian Yong, 37 — can be revived again if new evidence emerges or if he breaches any of the conditions attached to his conditional warning.

Prosecutors decided to discontinue the criminal proceedings against Lim and administer the warning upon reviewing available evidence, a spokesperson from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) said on Wednesday.

These conditions include Lim staying crime-free for 36 months, as well as compensating his victim for his medical costs, pain and suffering for his injuries.

Lim has been out on bail throughout the saga and has not served jail time.

The AGC said that in coming to its decision, the prosecution had looked at the evidence available while preparing for Lim’s retrial.

The High Court had ordered a fresh trial in February, after Lim filed appeals against his conviction and sentence meted out in the State Courts.

During the appeal, the prosecution disclosed a police statement given by one of Lim’s nephews, Mr Edwin Cheong, who was not called to testify in court.

Mr Cheong’s statement contradicted testimony given by another of Lim’s nephews Ron Lim De Mai, who was the prosecution’s prime witness and the essential link between the hitmen and Lim.

Ron Lim had testified that Mr Cheong was there with him when he was contacted about the plot to attack Mr Koh.

Lim’s lawyers then argued that the late disclosure of the statement meant it was “unsafe” to convict him.

Lim was said to have grown jealous that his girlfriend Audrey Chen was dating Mr Koh. Ms Chen, now aged 31, was a beauty queen who won the inaugural Miss Mermaid pageant in September 2016. 

Lim, who owned freight forwarding company SNL Logistics, was married at the time with three children.

Ms Chen moved into his apartment at The Parc Condominium near West Coast Road but soon began dating Mr Koh, who was also married at the time.

While overseas, Lim then allegedly ordered his son and Ron Lim to attack Mr Koh on April 8, 2016.

When Mr Koh and Ms Chen went on the run from Lim afterwards, another three attackers caught them having supper at Little India and slashed Mr Koh’s face with a penknife.

Mr Koh suffered a stab wound as well as a flesh wound extending from his left upper lip to the right side of his chin.

In 2019, Lim was found guilty of conspiring with another man to plan the attack and was sentenced to the six-year jail term.

However, High Court judge Aedit Abdullah then ruled that a retrial was required to determine if Lim’s conviction was safe.

While prosecutors had pointed to other evidence to prove Lim’s guilt, many of their chains of inferences largely involved Ron Lim. His credibility and credit were also "the foundation of the evidence relied upon by the prosecution, as well as the district judge in his findings”, Justice Aedit noted.

Aside from that, the judge found certain aspects of Ron Lim’s evidence concerning. This included the fact that some of his statements did not implicate his uncle.

Justice Aedit also found that the prosecution’s late disclosure of Mr Cheong’s statement to Lim’s defence meant that they had breached their disclosure obligations — known in legal circles as Kadar obligations.

However, the judge stated that nothing pointed to any misconduct on the prosecution’s part during the State Courts trial, when they decided that Mr Cheong’s statement did not need to be disclosed to the defence.

The retrial had yet to take place when Lim was granted the discharge not amounting to an acquittal on Wednesday during a pre-trial conference, which was not open to the media.

Lim was represented by Senior Counsel N Sreenivasan, Mr Choo Si Sen and Mr Patrick Nai.