1. Kho Jabing, later in life Muhammad Kho Abdullah, was a Malaysian of mixed Chinese and Iban descent from Sarawak, Malaysia, who partnered with a friend to rob and murder a Chinese construction worker named Cao Ruyin in Singapore on 17 February 2008.
Later, when the changes to Singapore's death penalty laws took effect in January 2013, Kho Jabing was granted a re-trial, and thus have his death sentence commuted to life imprisonment and 24 strokes of the cane on 14 August of that same year.
The prosecution's appeal in the case of Kho Jabing was a landmark in Singapore's legal history, setting the main guiding principles for all judges in Singapore to decide where the discretionary death penalty is appropriate in future murder cases, which directly or indirectly affected both the sentencing and appeal outcomes of some murder cases that occurred in Singapore.
Kho Jabing was born on 4 January 1984, the eldest of two children and the only son in his family.
Kho Jabing was said to be active, helpful, hard working and responsible.
Kho Jabing left school after finishing Primary 6 because his family was not well-off and could not afford to send him to secondary school to further his studies.
Later on, Kho Jabing and Galing, then a shipyard worker, separated from the group.
Kho Jabing picked up a fallen tree branch, and used it to hit one of the men, Cao, from behind.
Nine days later, police investigations based on the retrieved phone records from Cao's handphone led to the arrests of both Kho Jabing and Galing on 26 February 2008.
The trio were all later found guilty and sentenced to imprisonment between 3.5 and 6 years and caning between 12 and 16 strokes of the cane in June 2009, a month before both Kho Jabing and Galing stood trial for murder.
The trial of Kho Jabing and Galing Anak Kujat began in July 2009.
Kho Jabing added that the first fractures were caused with severe force, and the subsequent ones resulted from less severe impacts on the head.
When presented with Galing's belt buckle by the prosecution as a possible weapon used to cause the injuries, Dr Teo could not make any conclusions, but he confirmed from Galing's account that the tree branch which Kho Jabing used to hit Cao was capable enough to cause the fractures on Cao's skull.
Kho Jabing testified that he only struck the deceased twice, but claimed he did not know the force exerted or where he aimed at; the prosecution later indicated that he said so in his police statements that he hit the victim on the head twice.
Kho Jabing insisted that he did not have the intention to kill Cao Ruyin, but only to rob him, stating that he felt deep remorse for causing the death of the victim.
Kho Jabing added that he was drunk when he robbed and assaulted Cao.
Kho Jabing's account differed from his police statements; he initially told police he saw Kho hitting the victim several times, but at the trial, he insisted that Kho hit the victim only once.
Justice Kan Ting Chiu found both Kho Jabing and Galing Kujat guilty of murder committed under Section 300 and sentenced both of them to death by long drop hanging.
Kho Jabing determined that Kho's actions of causing the injuries on the deceased victim was in the furtherance of the common intention of the pair to rob the victim and his friend, and that the injuries he intentionally caused were in the ordinary cause of nature to cause death, which constitutes an offence of murder under Section 300 of the Penal Code.
Kho Jabing reject Kho's claim of alcohol intoxication as he cited that Kho was able to clearly recount the events that took place, showing full control of his faculties at the time.
Later, Kho Jabing petitioned to the President of Singapore for clemency on 5 December 2011, but it was rejected.
Kho Jabing's case was ordered to be remitted to the original trial judge for re-sentencing; however, by this time, High Court judge Kan Ting Chiu had retired from the Bench since 27 August 2011 at the age of 65, and High Court judge Tay Yong Kwang was appointed to do the work instead.
Kho Jabing raised the fact that Kho possess a high culpability by setting upon vulnerable victims, arming himself with a weapon and using excessive force.
Kho Jabing had exhibited violence and viciousness when bludgeoning the victim on the head with the tree branch.
Kho Jabing additionally disagreed with the defence's earlier argument that a life term would be the starting and default position in sentencing when it comes to all cases in relation to its respective circumstances.
Kho Jabing disagreed that the death of another would not serve the ends of justice and only deepens the tragedy because the murderer himself is the one who deprives the victim of his right to life; the victim's life is as equally precious to him and his family as the murderer's life is to himself and his family.
Kho Jabing ordered that Kho's life sentence would commence from the date of his arrest on 26 February 2008.
Tay ordered that Kho Jabing was to receive the maximum of 24 strokes of the cane, based on the violence he exhibited during his attack on Cao and the resulting grievous consequences.
Since Kho Jabing's sentence was backdated to the date of his arrest on 26 February 2008, Kho Jabing would have needed to serve roughly another 15 years and six months in jail before his review for parole on or after 26 February 2028.
In November 2013, the prosecution filed an appeal against the re-sentencing of Kho Jabing; it was the first time an appeal was made against the High Court's decision to re-sentence a convicted murderer to life imprisonment since the 2013 death penalty law reforms in Singapore.
The 24 strokes of the cane, which Kho Jabing received in addition to his life sentence in August 2013 and postponed pending the outcome of the appeal, were scrapped since the law does not allow caning for convicts who were sentenced to death.
However, they disagreed with the fact that Kho Jabing had substantially demonstrated any of the above to warrant a death sentence for his case.
The petition was submitted to the Istana on 24 April 2015, and Kho Jabing later submitted an addendum to his second clemency appeal on 15 May 2015.
Later, on 27 May 2015, Kho Jabing's family submitted another petition for clemency to the President.
Kho Jabing Jumai, who married at age 16, was a homemaker and could not take care of her mother since she was living away from home, and Jumai's husband's salary was barely enough to support their own small family of four.
At the time Kho Jabing filed his second petition for clemency, it was known that since 1965, there were only six cases where a President of Singapore accepted the clemency plea and commuted a death row inmate's death sentence to life imprisonment.
The lawyer requested the Singapore Prison Service to inform them about the execution date once a date is fixed to fulfill Kho Jabing's sentence, adding that he and his colleagues will help Kho Jabing to fulfill his last wishes.
Kho Jabing's family were not informed of the pending execution long beforehand.
Later on however, when the Court of Appeal asked Ravi to reconsider proceeding with the case since Kho Jabing currently had legal counsel representing him, Ravi declined to.
Kho Jabing urged Sarawakians working overseas to respect and abide by the law of the other countries where they currently work or live in.
Kho Jabing added that during the time her brother was imprisoned in Singapore, her then 11-year-old son had been asking her when his uncle will be home, while her then two-year-old daughter has never met her uncle, highlighting the turmoil that her family was in over Kho's imminent fate.
The next day, on 5 November 2015, the day before Kho Jabing's scheduled hanging, the Court of Appeal granted a stay of execution, effectively suspending Kho Jabing's scheduled execution while pending the outcome of the appeal.
Kho Jabing said that Kho's original trial did not go into details of the evidence surrounding the severity of the injuries and the degree of force exerted to inflict these injuries.
Kho Jabing said that Kho was not given a chance to testify in the re-trial about the number of blows and the force used when he attacked the victim Cao.
In rebuttal, the prosecution pointed out that Kho Jabing had given a testimony in the original trial on how many times he hit the victim and the degree of force he exerted during the assault.
Not only that, DPP Francis Ng of the AGC, who was the prosecutor at the appeal ruling, described Kho Jabing's case at this moment was "a disappointed litigant's attempt to convince the court to revisit a point that has been thoroughly considered".
On 19 May 2016, the final day before Kho Jabing was due to be executed, a last-minute appeal, filed by one of Kho's two newly engaged lawyers Gino Hardial Singh, was heard, and the same five judges who heard the 2015 appeal earlier were set to hear it.
The second appeal was during the time when the death penalty is no longer mandatory and Kho Jabing was re-sentenced, the appeal court at that time had considered carefully before reaching the conclusion that Kho Jabing's culpability and actions ultimately deserves the death penalty.
However, she was given an 11 pm deadline to file a criminal appeal, and later in that day, Chong-Aruldoss successfully met the deadline and secured a temporary stay of execution for Kho Jabing pending the outcome of the newly filed appeal, for which Kho would not be hanged till the appeal was heard.
On 20 May 2016, at 9 am, after hearing the appeal, the Court of Appeal rejected this appeal, reiterating that the lawyers representing Kho Jabing had been rehashing their old arguments made before or withdrawn by Kho Jabing's previous lawyers in the previous appeals.
Kho Jabing was surprised at Chong-Aruldoss's decision to file a civil application when it was a criminal matter.
Shortly after his final appeal was thrown out by the Court of Appeal, the stay of execution was lifted and Kho Jabing's execution was ordered to take place in the afternoon of 20 May 2016 at 4.30 pm, according to the Malaysian High Commission.
Kho Jabing's family went to Changi Prison to see him one last time.
At 3.30 pm on the Friday afternoon of 20 May 2016, more than eight years after the murder of Cao Ruyin, and merely hours after the dismissal of his final appeal, 32-year-old Kho Jabing was hanged at Changi Prison.
Kho Jabing's body was brought back to Sarawak the next day by flight, and it arrived at Mascargo.
Kho Jabing was able to quote verses of the Quran and hadith and recite the former fluently, and fasted during Ramadan and even voluntarily did so regularly.
Fadlon added that Kho Jabing had recited the Surah Yasin before his death, requesting his friends to perform haj on behalf of him and prayed that his family would receive the guidance of Islam.
Many users of Facebook were angered at the tribute's publication; many of them posted furious comments, accusing the activist for romanticising the deceased Kho Jabing and giving the convicted killer a hero treatment while not paying the same respect to the murdered victim Cao Ruyin.
One Facebook user, in response, made a tribute dedicated to Cao and described in graphic detail of how Kho Jabing attacked Cao on that fateful night of 17 February 2008, and another asked if Han cared to write a similar tribute about the victim and called her shameless.
One of these netizens included a lawyer, who criticised Chong-Aruldoss for her conduct and decision to defend Kho Jabing, and accused her for trying to gain political mileage through this case given her status as an opposition politician in the Singapore government.
The Ministry of Home Affairs additionally commented on the same day, agreeing with the AGC's statements, saying that the last-ditch attempts by Kho Jabing's lawyers appeared to be solely trying to delay Kho Jabing's execution.
On 15 November 2016, five months after the hanging of Kho Jabing, there was a lecture titled "Recalibration of the Death Penalty Regime: Origin, Ramifications and Impact", sponsored by a law firm, at its auditorium in Raffles Place.
Kho Jabing said it was an overstatement to say that the government had made a dramatic shift in its position on the mandatory death penalty.
Kho Jabing said that there will still be an emphasis on deterrence regardless of any change in the area.
Kho Jabing noted that all five judges had agreed that in cases where the death penalty was not mandatory, a death sentence was justified if the offender's actions had "outraged the feelings of the community".
Kho Jabing commented that the principle and approach adopted by the five-judge Court of Appeal in its 2015 judgement of Kho Jabing's case was the right one.
Not only did Kho Jabing have an effect on Singapore's legal history through the death penalty, he left behind a legacy for the requirements of reopening any concluded criminal appeals through the first of his three last-minute appeals made in November 2015, which effectively suspended his hanging.