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SINGAPORE: The court on Monday (Oct 5) ordered a 61-year-old man accused of murder at Beach Road in 2020 to be detained for psychiatric assessment to determine whether he is capable of making his defence given his cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n
Chng Hock Choon has been charged with the murder of Miskiman Maakip, then 67, on Sep 13, 2020.<\/p>\n
The authorities found Miskiman lying motionless on a grass patch near Block 5, Beach Road at about 3pm. He was taken to a hospital and was pronounced dead later that day.<\/p>\n
During a video hearing at the High Court on Monday, Deputy Public Prosecutors Christina Koh and Grace Chua applied for Chng to be detained at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH) for assessment by a designated medical practitioner, who would certify whether he is capable of making his defence.<\/p>\n
Chng, who appeared thin and frail and sported shoulder-length hair, has been diagnosed with dementia. During the 15-minute hearing, he stood up multiple times and attempted to exit the room where he was attending the hearing via video link.<\/p>\n
A Mandarin interpreter told his lawyers that Chng could say his name but not his identification number.<\/p>\n
Five minutes before the hearing was scheduled to start, he left the room, with officers appearing to let him out.<\/p>\n
When court convened, his lawyer Krishna R Sharma told the court that Chng had informed the officers that the hearing was done, so “they took him back”. \u00a0<\/p>\n
The proceedings were stood down to allow the officers to escort Chng back.<\/p>\n
Citing Chng’s previous psychiatric report, Ms Koh said he had been found to have a neurocognitive disorder with impaired memory and cognition that rendered him unable to follow court proceedings or understand the charge against him.<\/p>\n
The prosecution thus sought a formal assessment to determine whether Chng was capable of making his defence.<\/p>\n
Chng’s other lawyer, Mr Chung Ting Fai, did not object to the application.<\/p>\n
Justice Dedar Singh Gill granted the application. The court will convene another hearing after the certificate has been issued.<\/p>\n
If Chng is certified incapable of making his defence,\u00a0the statutory regime under Sections 247 to 249 of the Criminal Procedure Code will apply.<\/p>\n
Under this regime, the court must determine whether Chng is incapable of making his defence.<\/p>\n
If so, the court must report the case to the relevant minister and specify the notional imprisonment period that Chng would have been required to undergo had he been convicted of the offence he was charged with.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The minister may then make an appropriate order for Chng to be detained at IMH or at any other suitable facility.<\/p>\n
As Chng has yet to be certified incapable of making his defence, the court did not discuss his notional imprisonment period. \u00a0<\/p>\n
Further details of the case have yet to be revealed in court.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In an earlier case involving the same legal regime, a 90-year-old man who killed his wife was given a notional imprisonment period of five years<\/a> after he was certified to be of unsound mind.<\/p>\n Ridawi Morsudin was given the notional imprisonment period by the High Court on Aug 28, in what is believed to be the first case of its kind dealt with since amendments to Singapore’s unsoundness-of-mind regime took effect in February 2025.<\/p>\n Ridawi had been found to be suffering from dementia and may have been delirious when he killed his wife.<\/p>\n After deciding on the notional imprisonment period, the High Court judge in that case said she would report the case to the relevant minister. Ridawi was to remain remanded at the Complex Medical Centre in the meantime.<\/p>\n Murder carries the death penalty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n SINGAPORE: The court on Monday (Oct 5) ordered a 61-year-old man accused of murder at Beach Road in 2020 to be detained for psychiatric assessment…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":90428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2611],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buzz-headlines","wpcat-2611-id"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=90427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/90428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=90427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=90427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sgbuzz.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=90427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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