SINGAPORE — A brothel owner, who murdered a pimp for stealing money from him, has successfully appealed against his death sentence and was jailed for life instead.

In delivering the grounds for the decision, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon — who was presiding during the hearing with Judges of Appeal Andrew Phang and Judith Prakash — said on Tuesday (July 30) that the court found that Chan Lie Sian merely wanted to severely injure William Tiah Hung Wai, and not specifically to kill him.

Chan, now 55, also known as Benny Seow, was found guilty of murder with the intention to kill Tiah and was sentenced to death in May 2017.

Chan’s lawyer Wendell Wong then appealed against his client’s conviction and death sentence.

The court heard that on Jan 14, 2014, Chan summoned Tiah to the brothel located along Geylang Lorong 18 to question him about the sum of S$6,500 that he believed Tiah had stolen from him.

Tiah denied it and during their confrontation between 11am and 2.30pm, Chan struck Tiah on the head many times with a 40cm-long metal rod, which weighed 1.46kg.

Chief Justice Menon said: “With no witnesses around and with the victim lying helpless on the bed, the appellant had every opportunity to bring any such intention to kill to fruition. Yet, he did not do so even though the victim was clearly alive.” 

He also said that the court rejected the prosecution’s submission that Chan wanted Tiah to suffer as much as possible.

If this were the case, he said that the attack would not have lasted only 15 minutes and “the impacts to the victim’s head would not have almost entirely been of only mild to moderate force”.

Moreover, he added that if Chan had intended to kill Tiah, it would have been entirely against Chan’s interest to openly admit to his subordinates what had transpired.

“Although the appellant took some initial steps to conceal his involvement in the victim’s injuries, those attempts were equally consistent with his having an intention to severely injure rather than specifically to kill the victim,” the judge said.

If Chan had an intention to kill Tiah, it would have “made no sense” for him to have ordered a subordinate to fetch a bucket of water so that they could revive Tiah with it. Chan also instructed them to treat Tiah’s wounds with bandages.

Chief Justice Menon said that Chan had surrendered himself to the police because he thought that the victim’s injuries were not fatal and would be charged with voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon instead.  

“Given that the appellant honestly believed that the victim’s injuries were not fatal, the appellant’s acts of: Preventing the witnesses from obtaining medical attention for the victim; and parading the victim’s body to show the consequences of offending the appellant were therefore insufficient to demonstrate that the appellant acted in blatant disregard for human life.”

The court thus decided to convict Chan with a less severe murder charge under Section 300 (C) of the Penal Code.

Chief Justice Menon said that the court had the discretion to sentence an accused person convicted under such a charge to either life imprisonment and caning, or death.

The death penalty would be warranted only where the actions of the offender “outraged the feelings of the community”, he said, and this would be the case where these actions exhibited viciousness or a blatant disregard for human life.