On 25 April 2006, at a playground in Ang Mo Kio, Singapore, 26-year-old Jagagevan Jayaram brought along a chopper and wanted to seek revenge on 26-year-old Sadayan Ajmeershah over a previous dispute, but it ended with Jagagevan being killed by Sadayan and his two friends who retaliated against Jagagevan's attack. Sadayan and his two friends, Arull Wanan Thangarasu and Melvin Mathenkumar Segaram, were all arrested and charged with murder; Arull was the brother-in-law of the victim. Ultimately, the charges of murder against the trio were reduced: both Melvin and Arull were convicted of causing hurt with dangerous weapons and each of them were jailed for four years with caning (eight strokes for each man), while Sadayan was convicted of the most serious charge of manslaughter, and sentenced to nine years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane despite the prosecution's urgings for the maximum sentence of life imprisonment in Sadayan's case.
Fatal stabbing On 25 April 2006, the body of a 26-year-old bouncer was found riddled with stab wounds at a playground in Ang Mo Kio. The victim, 26-year-old Jagagevan Jayaram, was pronounced dead an hour later in hospital. It was believed that, based on witness accounts, Jagagevan was attacked by a group of five or six people and therefore killed on the scene where his body was found; it was subsequently confirmed that only three people were involved in the murder.
Based on the investigations and later sources, it was revealed that Jagagevan never knew any of his attackers, but on the date of his murder, Jagagevan and one of his attackers, identified as Sadayan Ajmeershah, were involved in a dispute between Sadayan's friend and Jagagevan's sister during that morning. Sadayan, who went to Jagagevan's flat to act as mediator, allegedly spat on the ground out of anger due to Jagagevan's sister verbally abusing him, but Sadayan apologized before he left the flat. Jagagevan, who was present at the flat, was angered at this and hence, he later went with four men to Sadayan's flat, where they assaulted him by punching, kicking and even used kitchen utensils to beat up Sadayan. As a result of the assault, Sadayan suffered multiple injuries on his head, face and abdomen. Jagagevan and his friends fled before the police and ambulance arrived.Public Prosecutor v Sadayan Ajmeershah (2007; unreported), High Court (Singapore).
Despite the severity of his injuries, Sadayan declined to go to the hospital until he finished clearing away the mess and bloodstains in the flat. By nightfall, Sadayan's friends came to bring him to the hospital. When they passed by a nearby provision shop, the group spotted Jagagevan and his friends going after them, but a passing police car caused Jagagevan and his friends to disappear. However, Jagagevan was undeterred and still bent on harming Sadayan to satisfy his thirst for vengeance, and hence together with one of his friends, Jagagevan armed himself with a chopper and went to search for Sadayan. Sadayan was said to have seen Jagagevan and panicked when he saw Jagagevan accidentally dropping his chopper, and out of fear that Jagagevan would once again attack him, Sadayan went home to get a kitchen knife and returned to join his friends.
Subsequently, a confrontation took place between Jagagevan and Sadayan nearby the playground where Jagagevan met his end. Sadayan's two friends - Melvin Mathenkumar Segaram and Arull Wanan Thangarasu (the brother-in-law of Jagagevan) - joined in during the confrontation. Jagagevan, who swung the chopper at Sadayan's neck, was stabbed 11 times by Sadayan on the neck and abdomen, and Jagagevan died as a result of the stabbing. The trio fled the scene after they finished assaulting the deceased. At the time of his death, Jagagevan, the eldest of three children, was survived by his mother and two siblings. His family described him as a man who loved his family and they noted that he tried his best to change his ways after his release from prison in February of that same year. Jagagevan was previously jailed four times for offences like theft and fighting (including reformative training).
Criminal charges In less than half a day after the murder, the three attackers, aged between 23 and 26, surrendered themselves to the police for having caused the death of Jagagevan. Sadayan's sister, contacted her husband upon finding out what happened and both of them persuaded Sadayan to turn himself in to the police. The three suspects - Melvin Mathenkumar Segaram, Sadayan Ajmeershah and Arull Wanan Thangarasu - were charged with murder on 27 April 2006. If found guilty of murder, the trio would be given the death penalty under Section 302 of the Penal Code of Singapore.
Prior to the incident, one of the alleged attackers, Melvin, was previously convicted of rioting back in 2001. On 28 August 2000, Melvin and at least nine other men attacked a group of seven men and inflicted violence while being part of an unlawful assembly. Melvin, who was then 18 years old and was also responsible for a 1999 rioting incident, was found guilty of these rioting charges in March 2001 and sentenced to a total of 22 months in prison and six strokes of the cane.
In April 2007, both Melvin Mathenkumar Segaram and Arull Wanan Thangarasu, aged 24 and 22 respectively, were convicted of reduced charges of causing hurt with dangerous weapons. Both Melvin and Arull, who pleaded guilty, were each sentenced to four years' imprisonment and eight strokes of the cane. At that point, Sadayan was the sole person left facing a murder charge for stabbing Jagagevan to death, and he remained at Queenstown Remand Prison while pending trial.
Trial of Sadayan Ajmeershah Background of the accused
The main perpetrator, Sadayan Ajmeershah, was born in Singapore on 27 August 1980. Sadayan was the youngest of four children, and had two older brothers and one older sister. Sadayan studied up to secondary school and completed his N-levels, but he dropped out afterwards. Sadayan completed his National Service in 2002, and he worked odd jobs afterwards, and eventually, he was employed as a bartender in a nightclub. Prior to the murder, Sadayan originally planned to marry his fiancée in May 2006, and he had been living together with the woman in a rental flat at Ang Mo Kio. The couple's first child, a daughter, was born in November 2006 while Sadayan was still in remand awaiting trial for the murder of Jagagevan Jayaram.
In fact, before his first run-in with the law, Sadayan received a police commendation for helping to nab several thieves in 1998, but four years later, from 2002 to 2006, Sadayan had gotten into trouble with the law for five separate offences, including a case of theft committed with two more men in 2002 while he was still serving his National Service. Sadayan had spent a total of two months in jail for these offences, including one week of prison time for the aforementioned theft offence. Another one of these offences pertained to an incident where Sadayan had assaulted a public servant.
Plea of guilt and conviction Originally, on 10 May 2007, 26-year-old Sadayan Ajmeershah was slated to face trial for a reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder (equivalent to manslaughter in Singapore's legal context) at the High Court. However, during the hearing, Sadayan's plea of guilt did not go through, because "certain matters" could not be resolved between the prosecution and defence, and hence Sadayan's murder charge was revived, which caused Sadayan to once again faced the possibility of a death sentence if convicted of the original charge of murder. Sadayan had reportedly expressed that he rather be sentenced to death than to plead guilty to manslaughter.
On 13 August 2007, Sadayan once again stood trial at the High Court for killing 26-year-old Jagagevan Jayaram back in 2006. Sadayan's murder charge was reduced to manslaughter after some developments in his case. In a hearing convened before Justice Tay Yong Kwang of the High Court, Sadayan, who would turn 27 in two weeks' time, pleaded guilty to the manslaughter charge and therefore convicted as charged. The possible punishment which Sadayan could face for manslaughter was either life imprisonment or up to ten years' imprisonment (in addition to a possible fine or caning).
Submissions and sentencing The prosecution, led by Lee Cheow Han, sought the maximum sentence of life imprisonment, describing Sadayan as a "danger to the society" due to his frequent run-ins with the law, most of which were violence offences, and they even raised the fact that Sadayan's father brought up a personal protection order against his son, and they pointed out there was no justification for Sadayan to inflict 11 knife wounds on Jagagevan, and they stated that Sadayan did not show remorse for killing Jagagevan, since Sadayan disposed of the knife after the crime and only surrendered after hearing that his friends gave themselves up, and even tried pinning the blame on the victim rather than taking responsibility of his actions. A psychiatric report revealed that Sadayan suffered from anti-social personality disorder, which highlighted Sadayan's disregard for authority and social norms, and demonstrated his tendency to resort to violence, and he had a high risk of re-offending. Based on this, the prosecution strongly urged the court to sentence Sadayan to a life term for the protection of society.
In rebuttal, Sadayan's defence counsel - consisting of veteran lawyers Peter Keith Fernando and Subhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan (Anandan's nephew) - argued that Sadayan should be given ten years' jail rather than life imprisonment. Anandan argued that while Sadayan was at fault for killing Jagagevan and never sought the help of the police, he stated that Jagagevan was not an innocent angel either because he was clearly the aggressor and had been the one who sparked the whole turn of events, which made him partly responsible for his own demise at the hands of Sadayan and his friends, who only retaliated due to Jagagevan's remorseless quest for revenge, and Sadayan was indeed remorseful and filled with anguish for having stabbed the victim due to Jagagevan's non-stop harassment. Fernando also added that Sadayan, who was then holding a stable job and looking forward to become both a husband and father, was merely caught up in a "web of unfortunate circumstances and incidents that escalated out of control". In a dramatic and yet touching turn of events during the session, Sadayan personally submitted a letter to the trial court, pleading for a second chance and mercy from the law. Sadayan stated that he was feeling sad and sorry for what happened, and on top of that, Sadayan wrote that through this ordeal, he truly realized how much his father loved him a lot, as Sadayan's father had actually sold off their family flat and dedicated both the proceeds and his personal life-savings to engage the best lawyers to represent his son, and Sadayan wrote that he misunderstood that his father did not love him but hated him. Sadayan also expressed his wish to be filial to his father and wanted to repay him, and he hoped to return to his daughter's side and take care of her.