99 Months

Ram Tiwary

Description

On 15 September 2003, two Singaporean students at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Tony Tan Poh Chuan and Tay Chow Lyang, were brutally murdered in their apartment. More than eight months later, their housemate and fellow Singaporean, Ram Tiwary, was arrested for their murders. Although Ram proclaimed innocence, he was found guilty in 2006 and sentenced to life imprisonment. A successful appeal overturned the conviction and awarded him a retrial, which also resulted in a guilty verdict in 2009. But just two days after the second appeal in 2012, the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal overturned the 2009 conviction and acquitted him. He was released after spending 99 months in maximum security jail. What happened in the courtroom that compelled the most senior judges in the state to overturn two murder convictions within a day of the hearings? From the police claims of 'losing' evidence from evidence safes, revelations in the courtroom that the DPP had hidden crucial evidence from its own expert witnesses, solid leads that were inexplicably abandoned, detectives seemingly caught lying under oath and the Crown's theory of naked assassins, this is Ram's story of the 99 months that have left us with more questions than answers.

Sujets

• True crime
• Australia

Informations

• Publié par: Marshall Cavendish International
• Date de parution: 18 septembre 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814634755
• Langue: English

Extrait

2014 Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Cover design: Cover Kitchen
Published in 2014 by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
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National Library Board, Singapore Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
Tiwary, Ram, 1979- 99 months : the case of the Sydney double murders / Ram Tiwary. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2014.
pages cm ISBN : 978-981-4561-46-4 (paperback) eISBN : 978 981 4634 75 5
1. Tiwary, Ram, 1979- - Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Murder - Australia - Sydney (N.S.W) 3. Murder - Investigation - Australia - Sydney (N.S.W) 4. Trials (Murder) - Australia - Sydney (N.S.W) I. Title.
HV6248 364.1523092 - dc23 OCN886262174
Printed in Singapore by Markono Print Media Pte Ltd
For
Guruji.
My father and my mother, my elder brother and my younger, whose ordeal was worse than mine. My family for their words, said and unsaid.
My friends from all over who came to that place no one wants to visit.
And my Aussie friends because of whom, despite my best efforts, I still really like Australia: EM. Richard Suzie. Sean Elle. Zodin. Iggy. My muse, Bernadette.
And for the brilliance and/or the dogged determination of David Dalton, SC; Andrew Scali, Anthony Goodridge, Tim Game, SC; Andrew Miller; Ramesh.
It s an awful truth that suffering can deepen us, give a greater lustre to our colours, a richer resonance to our words. That is, if it doesn t destroy us, if it doesn t burn away the optimism and the spirit, the capacity for visions, and the respect for simple yet indispensable things.
Anne Rice The Queen of the Damned
CONTENTS
Preface
There And Back Again
Leaving On A Jet Plane
15th September, 2003
Living Under A Shadow
256 Days Later
Jail
Trial
The Evidence
The Police Case
Judges And Juries
Outside The Court
Judgment Day
Convicted Murderer
Life Plus 25
Life As A Lifer
The Appeals
Why The Convictions, Then?
One Step From Home
Police Cover-up?
Still Inside
The End Of The Beginning Cliche
Appendix
PREFACE
I LOST MY FREEDOM for 99 months.
Lost my freedom.
I sit here looking at those three simple words, and remember what they represented for me all those years. Looking around to find only fences, walls and locked doors on all four sides year after year, while memories of what lies beyond fade, does strange things to the human mind.
I quoted Anne Rice on the opening page on how suffering changes us not because I think I am a very deep person now, but because my experience has made me realise how carefree I was before and how life took me to the brink and left me so changed. My natural inclination had always been to take things at face value. That trust is gone now, and I feel that I have lost something precious.
I was arrested eight-and-a-half months after the murders, at the age of 25 years and 9 days. Being told that you might live the rest of your life within the confines of four walls is a lot for someone of that age to take, perhaps for anyone to take. The experience of witnessing the aftermath of the brutal murders of my friends, and being forced through dreams, and then legal necessity, to revisit the events over and over again for years, changed me in subtle, unforeseeable ways.
Spending year upon year in maximum security prison after being told that you will never leave also takes its toll. Certain everyday sounds still make me uncomfortable or send my pulse racing, even when I am sitting in a beautiful, comfortable home surrounded by friends and family. There are indelible mental and physical scars I bear from my time inside that I never speak of, even to them.
I was fortunate enough to have family and friends who supported and believed in me simply because they knew me. For the most part, they tried to never broach the subject when we spoke or met while I was in prison. It was only during our conversations after my release that we realised that there were so many popular misconceptions about so much of the evidence. It occurred to us then that if those closest to me who were following the case were unaware, others were very much more likely to be. The insistence from certain friends that I have to let people know! was one of the major factors in my decision to write about my experience.
Writing this was difficult. Our natural human tendency is to avoid revisiting traumatic, painful events, and I fought the urge to give up and walk away many times, every single day. At times, I did actually walk away, but I always came back. It has taken me over a year of research, painful recollection, exasperation and many moments of middle-of-the-night inspiration (some things never change - I still do the bulk of my productive work in the wee hours of the morning) to write this book.
While writing one night, I looked out of my window and saw the moon. One of the bars of my window grille fell across her face, reminding me of all those years in jail when I could never see the entire moon because of the barred windows. Suddenly, a nauseating sense of deja vu gripped me and I couldn t get the grille open fast enough. I stuck my head out of the window and marvelled at the moon in her unobstructed glory. What an enigmatic feeling it is to do something you once believed you would never be able to.
At least I was home and by myself then. I don t know what will trigger such an embarrassing gut reaction next, and I dread failing to mask it in public. There have been other such instances, and I persevered through them in the hope that people will finally see beyond the speculative theories to the unmitigated facts, and hear from me for the first time.
Certain completely untrue myths persist about the people, events and the circumstances surrounding the murders. Some of these may have been intentionally perpetuated, in some cases by the New South Wales (NSW) police and the Office of the New South Wales Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), and I address them. While this book represents a vessel for me to put forward my hitherto untold story, I have included original documentation whenever available and used evidence as presented by the prosecution itself and eschewed conjecture in favour of unchallenged expert witness testimony. While a distillation of the facts and the evidence is necessary, it is not my ultimate objective.
More importantly for me, there are people out there who know what happened, but have thus far ignored repeated pleas to assist the police by giving statements, or even to identify themselves. I hope that this book will help to jog people s memories, or prompt them to lighten their conscience.
THERE AND BACK AGAIN
IT S HARD TO get used to it. The peeking, the sideways glances, the quick look-aways, the nudge-and-whispers.
I have become largely inured to them, but it is impossible to completely overcome the self-consciousness. The pink elephant river-dancing in the room does sometimes still make its presence felt, especially with new acquaintances and certain members of my extended family. Sometimes, during a conversation, I notice them searching my face. I don t know why for sure, but I assume it is for some sort of sign, perhaps in the creases of my countenance, that they think should show that I was convicted of double murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Perhaps they are looking for the fabled killer s eyes . (From my years inside living day in, day out with self-confessed murderers, I think I can safely say that they are indeed a myth.)
Surprisingly, it wasn t like that when I first returned to Singapore. Late in the evening of 19 September, 2012, as I walked through bright, orderly Changi Airport through the various stages of arrival, my thoughts were a jumble. The publicity of the preceding weeks over my acquittal had made me apprehensive of the sort of riotous media attention I was in for. As I approached the exit with my luggage trolley, my heart started to pound. I scanned the crowd for cameras and reporters, already squinting in anticipation of camera flashes and spotlights.
There were none.
With the Singapore authorities running the tight ship the world knows them for, not a single news outlet was aware of my arrival. I caught sight of my brother and cousin and the three of us walked quickly to the car park, incredulous that there hadn t been any reporter to accost us.
Personally, I was ecstatic simply about the fact that people hadn t pointed and stared at me at the airport. I allowed myself to think, Right, so I guess only the media is interested, normal people are getting on with their daily lives -