SINGAPORE: A sergeant with the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) lied under oath to cover up for his colleague, who was on trial for assaulting a man to extort a confession for drug offences.
The officer who lied, Muhammad Heykal Rahman, 36, was jailed for one-and-a-half years on Monday (Dec 23) after pleading guilty to a charge of intentionally giving false evidence.
Another charge of giving an investigation officer false information about the assault was considered for sentencing.
Heykal’s colleague, Vengedesh Raj Nainar Nagarajan, stood trial for beating up a suspect in order to extort a confession from him. He was found guilty and jailed for five years in 2022.
The victim of the assault was Sivabalan Kanniappan. He was stopped for inspection while entering Singapore through Woodlands Checkpoint on Jan 2, 2017.
A blue bundle suspected to contain controlled drugs was found in a raincoat bag kept in the rear box of Sivabalan’s motorcycle.
Sivabalan was handed over to a team from CNB that included Heykal. As an officer who could speak Tamil was needed, Raj was also activated.
In Sivabalan’s first statement, he denied knowledge of the blue bundle.
But even before arriving at CNB’s office at Woodlands Checkpoint, Raj had “already concluded that Sivabalan was not being honest”, prosecutors said.
“Raj wanted to secure a ‘quick confession’ from Sivabalan so that he could proceed with a follow-up operation to detain the recipient of the drugs.”
He therefore brought Sivabalan to a toilet in the CNB office and kicked, punched and slapped him, successfully extorting a confession from Sivabalan that he knew about the bundle of drugs.
Heykal was present in the toilet during the assault, the prosecution added.
During Raj’s trial, Sivabalan testified that Heykal was looking on during the first assault, and that when the two men were alone at one point, he pleaded with Heykal to help stop the beating.
According to Sivabalan, Heykal blamed him for not telling the truth in the first instance and said: “I cannot do anything. If he beat you, then he beat you.”
Heykal testified as a prosecution witness on May 6, 2021.
He claimed that he was busy looking through his and Sivabalan’s phones and was not paying attention to what was happening. He denied witnessing any assault.
Heykal also claimed that Raj spoke in a normal tone with Sivabanalan in the toilet, whereas both Raj and Sivabalan testified that the questioning had been done in a loud voice.
Heykal was further unable to explain why he remained in the toilet with Raj and the victim.
When asked what happened when he and Sivabalan were alone in the toilet, Heykal “provided very tentative answers, suggesting that he was either not sure of what happened, or he was withholding some facts”, prosecutors said.
The evidence that Heykal gave on the stand, including that Raj had not assaulted Sivabalan, was actually false, they added.
Closed-circuit television footage also showed that Heykal was in the toilet during Raj’s first assault on Sivabalan.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Joseph Gwee and Assistant Public Prosecutor Asran Samad asked for one-and-a-half years to two years in jail for Heykal.
They highlighted that he was an experienced law enforcement officer with nearly a decade of experience in CNB when he lied under oath.
Heykal’s offences spanned three years, from when he gave investigators false information in 2018 to when he gave false evidence in the trial in 2021, they said.
During this period, it was open to Heykal to correct the record at any time, they stressed.
His actions jeopardised the judicial process and could have resulted in the trial judge wrongfully acquitting Raj, the prosecutors added.
Heykal’s conduct also harmed the reputation of CNB, they argued.
The offence of giving false evidence in a judicial proceeding carries up to seven years in jail and may include a fine.
