SINGAPORE : It was the training accident that rocked the
Singapore Armed Forces.
2nd Sergeant Hu En Huai died on August 21 2003 after he was dunked
repeatedly into a tub of sea water.
Another trainee Captain Ho Wan Huo barely survived the
dunking.
Four red berets were charged; the trial will resume on January 7
next year.
The Combat Survival Training course was designed to prepare
trainees for the potential treatment they might receive as a
prisoner of war.
Dunking was one way to make them reveal mission secrets and other
details like their rank.
Both 2nd Sergeant Hu and Captain Ho were attending the course
conducted by the Commando Training Wing.
Captain Ho told the court that whoever dunked him wore gloves which
exposed the fingers.
Lieutenants Jeff Ng Chin Fong and Divanandhari Chandrasekharan were
among those who conducted the training.
Both claim they could not remember dunking 2nd Sergeant Hu and were
not involved in Captain Ho's dunking.
They also said they wore full gloves that day.
Captain Pandiaraj Mayandi, charged with instigating the
instructors, said he briefed instructors not to dunk the trainees
more than four times and not to exceed 20 seconds each.
The captain did not think it was wrong because he went through
similar treatment as a Ranger trainee himself.
2nd Warrant S Balakrishnan said he thought dunking was approved
because he learnt it from senior instructors before him.
Warrant Bala said he was carrying out other duties at the time of
the dunkings, and so could not have prevented it.
A strange twist emerged when Master Sergeant K Rajindran said there
were missing photos apart from the ones tendered in court as
evidence.
When interviewed by the Criminal Investigation Department before
the trial, Master Raj saw photos which showed an instructor
armlocking a trainee. He said another instructor was seen sitting
on the back of a trainee.
But a CID officer, ASP Abdul Halim Osman refuted the claim saying
the CID received the negatives the day after Master Raj's
interview.
The trial resumes on January 7 2005, when lawyers will make their
final submissions.
If convicted, the four commandos could face up to 4 years in jail
each. - CNA