In another unusual case handled by Trident Law’s criminal law defence team, we managed to cut the jail term imposed on our client by 12 years on the basis that our client’s original convictions were wrong in law.

Our client, Koh Bak Kiang, pleaded guilty in 2007 to drug trafficking and was sentenced to 25 years’ jail and 24 strokes of the cane. In 2015, at the re-opening of his case in the High Court before the Honourable the Chief Justice, our criminal defence lawyers led by Mr. R. Thrumurgan argued that his original convictions were wrong.

The High Court ordered a trial-within-a-trial to be held in the State Courts to ascertain the admissibility of our client’s confessions to investigators from the Central Narcotics Bureau. Following the trial-within-a-trial, the High Court ordered that our client’s statements were not admissible.

At a later hearing, the High Court and the Prosecution agreed with our submissions that our client’s original convictions were wrong in law. After having served 8 years of his 25-year jail sentence at the time of the hearing in 2015, our client was released just 2 months later.

See also: S’pore engineer turns drug trafficker