SINGAPORE: A man who was originally given life imprisonment for murdering his wife's former lover was on Wednesday (Jun 27) handed the death sentence, after the prosecution appealed.

A three-judge Court of Appeal said Chia Kee Chen, 58, exhibited a blatant disregard for the life of Mr Dexmon Chua.





"This was most evident from his admissions that he wanted to torture the deceased and make him suffer as much as possible before dying," said Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon.

Chia was in August last year sentenced to life imprisonment. Justice Choo Han Teck said then that while he had the intention and motive to kill, it was possible that he did not inflict the fatal blows during the attack on Mr Chua, which Chia carried out with two accomplices.

Chia had accosted Mr Chua near his Choa Chu Kang flat on Dec 28, 2013, and bundled him into a waiting van. Inside, Chia and accomplice Febri Irwansyah Djatmiko electrocuted Mr Chua, rendering him unconscious before severely assaulting him.



Mr Chua was beaten to death and his body dumped at Lim Chu Kang Road in the early hours of Dec 29, 2013.





The attack was carried out a year after Chia found out about the affair between his wife and Mr Chua, who were colleagues. By then, the affair had ended.

Chia will now face the gallows, after Wednesday's decision by the Court of Appeal, made up of Chief Justice Menon and Judges of Appeal Judith Prakash and Tay Yong Kwang.

EXTENSIVE FRACTURES IN VICTIM'S SKULL



Delivering the judgment, Chief Justice Menon said that Chia's actions warranted a death sentence for three reasons.

Chia was the mastermind of a plan to abduct and assault Mr Chua more than a year after the affair had ended. Chia demonstrated "a high degree of planning and premeditation", he said.

While his accomplice, 36-year-old Indonesian national Febri Irwansyah Djatmiko, had inflicted the injuries on Mr Chua, Chia did not ask Febri to stop, the Chief Justice added.

Pointing to extensive fractures in Mr Chua’s skull, as well as blood stains found in the Choa Chu Kang car park and in the van where the attack happened, Chief Justice Menon also said that the attack was vicious and brutal.



The prosecution said the sentence of life imprisonment was "manifestly inadequate" for what was "a murder in cold blood where the professed intention from the outset was not just to kill Dexmon, but to inflict terror, pain and humiliation on him".

The court disregarded the psychiatric report which said that Chia was suffering from major depressive disorder at the time of the offence, on the basis that this report did not meet the minimum standards of expert evidence.

Febri, 36, remains at large in Indonesia.

The other accomplice Chua Leong Aik, 68, who drove the van, is serving a five-year jail term for charges of abduction and causing grievous hurt.

The defence’s appeal against conviction was dismissed.