Free Blood Lust by Alex Josey

constricted their necks in the process of movement.
Andrew said that the robbery was not to involve violence but the fact was that
there was some violence and it was beyond him to stop it. Andrew made a clean
breast about his part in the robbery. But this was a far cry from murder. He
had exclaimed in surprise when told by the police that Ngo and his colleagues
had been killed. There was no evidence that Andrew had faked surprise.
    Mr Giam argued that it was clear that
Augustine was the mastermind and that he arranged the whole episode. Mr Gopalan
followed the same line of reasoning. Mr Fernando said that the prosecution’s
‘star witness’, Augustine Ang, ‘is clearly an accomplice of the worst type’.
Apart from being an accomplice ‘in the most despicable manner’, Ang was also a
witness who had the Sword of Damocles hanging over his head. His evidence
should thus be regarded as tainted and approached with suspicion and extreme
caution. Mr Tan contended that on the evidence, Ringo Lee and Stephen Lee were
never part of the unlawful assembly. They played the part of the undertakers.
“Even if they knew that their job was to take away dead bodies that did not
mean they shared the common object to kill someone.” Counsel also submitted
that even if it were true that Ringo Lee and Stephen Lee had pulled a rope
around the neck of a motionless victim, it could not be deemed murder if their
victim was already dead. Mr Goho argued: “If you are going to have people
killed in your backyard for some animosity or vengeance, you must give
directions to those doing the job as to how it should be done. The fact that my
clients were not told about any such plan only indicates that they were never
told to kill at all.”
    The Solicitor-General had the final word at
the trial. He named Andrew Chou as the ‘prime mover’ of the conspiracy to rob
and kill the three men. David Chou was in charge of operations and Augustine
Ang was Andrew’s errand boy. “David said that his greatest fear was that his
mother might wake up and see what was happening at their house that night so he
had no choice but to join in the attack to expedite removal of the victims from
the house. That is the lamest of excuses I have heard in my 20 years’
experience in Court. All he needed was to wake up his mother and ask her to sit
out with them and Andrew would never have dared to commit the robbery. Andrew’s
and David’s story about a plot to rob the victims and confine them for a while
and later release them after giving Ngo back some of his own gold is so stupid
that I don’t know why they even bothered to tell us.”
    Mr Ghows said that unfortunately for the
conspirators the five recruits they got were of the ‘irresponsible type and
they threw the bodies in a bush, not into a well as they were supposed to. If
they had been more responsible people even now the police would still be
looking for Ngo and his friends.’ All the accused, he contended, knew of the
conspiracy to kill. “When all these boys rushed out of the kitchen that night
the bodies were still alive and so they joined in the killing so that they
would have some bodies to bury for $8,000.”
    Of Stephen Lee, Mr Ghows said that he
‘joined in knowing very well that men were going to be buried after the
killing’. He said that Alex Yau claimed to be the most innocent of the whole
lot as he only drove the car. “But even if Alex did not think he had been
approached to take part in the killing, when he rushed out of the kitchen that
night with the others he joined the rest of them in the common object of
killing even if it was not his hand that delivered the fatal blows.” There was
no charge of conspiracy against all the accused, ‘but we contend that when the
melee started in the backyard and they all came rushing out of the kitchen,
they joined in the common object and adopted it by helping to tie and gag the
victims. There is no doubt that everybody knew there was going to be