SINGAPORE : When he had been asked to enter his defence
during his trial for the murder of his Indonesian girlfriend,
Bangladeshi construction worker Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus chose not
to take the stand, arguing that the evidence against him was
circumstantial.
On Friday, a High Court sentenced the 35-year-old to death
on the basis that the untruths in his police statements during
investigations corroborated the circumstantial evidence, suggesting
he had killed 25-year-old maid Yulia Afriyanti on 16 December
2007.
Justice Kan Ting Chiu also noted that the "strong" circumstantial
evidence was "reinforced by the inference drawn from Kamrul's
election to remain silent" during the trial, which ended last
February.
Kamrul's account, from his statements, was that he had found Ms
Yulia's naked body stuffed in a cardboard box in a unit of the
[email protected] construction site along Queensway Road at 4am.
He claimed that his mind was a blank afterwards and that he did not
dare to tell anyone about the discovery.
But Justice Kan ruled, in his grounds of decision, that Kamrul's
lies in certain key areas suggested he was guilty.
For instance, contrary to what he had told Ms Yulia and her family
and friends on the night before her death, his mother and brother
were not coming to Singapore.
Phone records also disproved his claim that he had gone to the
worksite to look for Ms Yulia - who was strangled to death shortly
after 4am, according to forensic pathologist Gilbert Lau - after
she gave him a call.
Regarding Ms Yulia's possessions, which were found in his dormitory
locker, Kamrul lied that her watch was a gift he had bought for his
wife back home.
Kamrul likely opted against being cross-examined by prosecutors
because he could not offer any explanation for his contradictory
statements, the judge added.
- TODAY/ms