SINGAPORE: The man who attacked his wife with a chopper outside a Beach Road restaurant in 2022 admitted to attempted murder on Tuesday (May 20).
Cheng Guoyuan, 49, pleaded guilty to the charge and will have two counts of criminal intimidation taken into consideration for his sentencing, which has been adjourned to Jun 3.
Videos of the incident were widely shared, drawing the nation’s attention to the brutality inflicted on Ms Han Hongli, 44, even as at least 10 bystanders tried to fend off Cheng by throwing various objects at him.
Cheng and Ms Han are Chinese nationals. Cheng was a kitchen assistant at a steamboat restaurant on Veerasamy Road, while Ms Han was a manager at Chong Qing Steamboat Bar, located along Beach Road.
The pair met in 2004 and registered their marriage in 2009 with the Chinese authorities. Ms Han has a daughter from a previous marriage and had a son with Cheng in 2006.
In 2016, Ms Han came to Singapore to work and would remit around 10,000 yuan (S$1,800) to Cheng every two months.
However, the relationship deteriorated over time as Cheng felt that Ms Han looked down on him for earning less.
In April 2021, while she was in Singapore, Ms Han discovered that Cheng had done something wrong to her daughter. The wrongdoing was not revealed in court.
Angered by Cheng, Ms Han confronted him over the phone. Cheng admitted to the act but felt that it would not affect Ms Han’s daughter.
Cheng pleaded with her not to report the act to the police and promised to compensate the daughter.
Ms Han eventually agreed for Cheng to pay the daughter 40,000 yuan as compensation, but their relationship worsened. Cheng managed to borrow the sum of money but fell into financial difficulty subsequently.
By then, Ms Han stopped remitting money to Cheng, in part because she was not able to work due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The accused believed that his reputation and his family’s reputation were more important than his life, and would rather die than ‘losing (his) face’,” the prosecution said.
“As he was fearful that the victim would tell his relatives and friends about the wrongdoing, and wanted assurance from the victim that this would not happen, the accused kept contacting her via the WeChat messaging and calling application, requesting that she forgive him and let the matter rest.”
Cheng also asked Ms Han not to divorce him.
On Sep 4, 2021, Cheng came to Singapore to work as a cleaner at Outram Community Hospital without informing Ms Han.
On Nov 25, 2021, Cheng went to Ms Han’s workplace at Beach Road to look for her. Shocked to see him, Ms Han quarrelled with Cheng outside the restaurant for about half an hour.
Two days later, Cheng called Ms Han and threatened to kill her if she refused to reconcile with him.
He also threatened to kill Ms Han’s brother, whom he blamed for revealing his wrongdoing to Ms Han, and his family. Ms Han refused to give in and Cheng then sent her several harassing messages.
“He also requested to talk to her in person, and informed the victim that she was his woman in this lifetime and would be a ghost of his family when she dies,” the prosecution told the court.
Ms Han lodged a police report over the threats on Nov 28, 2021.
Cheng was investigated by the police and warned not to look for the victim. He then returned to China on Jan 5, 2022.
Back in China, Cheng sought ways to return to Singapore for work and to resolve the issue with his wife.
He managed to secure a job at the steamboat restaurant and returned to Singapore on Apr 6, 2022, again without telling his wife.
On Apr 12, 2022, Cheng came up with a plan to kill Ms Han after ruminating on how she had refused to forgive him despite his love for her, and how she could control his future. He felt that she had done things to let him down.
Wanting to settle things once and for all, he devised a plan to hack her to death with a cleaver if she refused to confirm that she would keep his wrongdoing a secret.
That afternoon, Cheng visited Ms Han’s workplace and walked past it twice but did not see her.
Over the next few days, Cheng drafted several notes on WeChat, meant to be read by others in the event that he died with the victim.
In the notes, addressed to various people, he alleged that Ms Han had been unfaithful and that he wanted her to pay the price for her actions.
He told his son to take care of himself and that he was “really very tired”. To his brother, Cheng said he wanted to die with Ms Han, who had “destroyed” him.
He mentioned wanting Ms Han to “pay the price for betraying” him and that he had “no face to live on anymore”.
On Apr 13, 2022, after Cheng’s work, he took a cleaver with a blade of about 20cm in length and kept it in his bag before heading to Ms Han’s workplace. He saw Ms Han from afar but felt nervous and eventually did not carry out his plan.
The next day, Cheng left his dormitory at about 4.50pm for Ms Han’s workplace. He brought his personal documents so that the police could identify him if he died.
Video footage of the incident, consisting of montages from different sources and taken from various angles, was played in court, starting from the moment Cheng took the bus to Beach Road.
The video, which lasted more than 12 minutes, was interrupted towards the end when Cheng – wearing a purple jumpsuit in the dock – let out a loud wail and began making gagging noises.
The judge called for a 10-minute standdown and court proceedings were halted as Cheng doubled over and continued to sob. He later spoke with his lawyer and appeared to regain his composure.
