Prosecutor

Glenn Knight

Description

Glenn Knight was Singapore's first Director of Commercial Affairs and Deputy Public Prosecutor until his illustrious career of public service came to an abrupt end. This book covers both the personal and professional landscape of this former top crime buster and high-flier, and details the highly publicised cases he handled including the Adrian Lim murders, and the Pan El and JB Jeyaretnam cases. It also describes his learning experience working with major legal personalities like TT Rajah, AG Tan Boon Teik, Singapore's first Chief Justice Wee Chong Jin, Justice FA Chua, Justice Choor Singh and Mr David Marshall.

Sujets

• Droit et juridique
• True crime

Informations

• Publié par: MarshallCavendishM
• Date de parution: 01 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9789814408806
• Langue: English

Extrait

2012 Glenn Knight and Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited
Photographs courtesy of Glenn Knight Cover and design by Benson Tan
Published by Marshall Cavendish Editions An imprint of Marshall Cavendish International 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. Request for permission should be addressed to the Publisher, Marshall Cavendish International (Asia) Private Limited, 1 New Industrial Road, Singapore 536196. Tel: [phone], Fax: [phone]. Email: [e-mail] . Website: www.marshallcavendish.com/genref
The publisher makes no representation or warranties with respect to the contents of this book, and specifically disclaims any implied warranties or merchantability or fitness for any particular purpose, and shall in no event be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damage, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Other Marshall Cavendish Offices
Marshall Cavendish Corporation. 99 White Plains Road, Tarrytown NY 10591-9001, USA Marshall Cavendish International (Thailand) Co Ltd. 253 Asoke, 12th Flr, Sukhumvit 21 Road, Klongtoey Nua, Wattana, Bangkok 10110, Thailand Marshall Cavendish (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Times Subang, Lot 46, Subang Hi-Tech Industrial Park, Batu Tiga, 40000 Shah Alam, Selangor Darul Ehsan, Malaysia
Marshall Cavendish is a trademark of Times Publishing Limited
National Library Board Singapore Cataloguing in Publication Data
Knight, Glenn, 1945-
The prosecutor / Glenn Knight. - Singapore : Marshall Cavendish Editions, 2012.
p. cm.
eISBN : 978-981-4408-80-6
1. Knight, Glenn, 1945- 2. Public prosecutors--Singapore--Biography. 3. White collar crimes--Singapore. I. Title

K5425
345.01262095957 - dc23 OCN797923286

Printed in Singapore by Chung Printing Pte Ltd
To my dearest mother, Mrs Minnie Knight, who always knew what it took to be a good man
F OREWORD BY ELEANOR WONG
P REFACE
1 Building My Own Case
2 The Big Hitters
3 Kidnapped At Rex Cinema
4 Murder In Amoy Street
5 Taxi To Mount Vernon
6 Uncertainty Over Borrowed Drug Laws
7 Chopper Attack
P HOTOGRAPHS
8 Thrown Down An HDB Block
9 Pulau Ubin Murder
10 A Most Evil Man
11 The Pan-El Debacle
12 More Insider Greed
13 Prosecuting JB Jeyaretnam
14 Glad To Be Back
A BOUT THE AUTHOR
T HE COMMERCIAL AFFAIRS DEPARTMENT WAS MY FIRST JOB out of law school, Glenn Knight my first boss. To a baby lawyer with a keen appreciation for drama, it was a dramatic time. Pan-El would fall within the year and Glenn would lead the department on a breathless succession of what seemed to me, groundbreaking cases. I m afraid that, to this day, my own accounts of those years are embarrassingly liberal with exclamation marks!
Thankfully, this book, like the man, is not.
Rather, like the unadorned, focused, piercing lawyer Glenn has always been, the stories here unfold with deceptive simplicity. The entire Pan-El episode, drawn-out and pock-marked with excited punctuation in my memory, merits exactly one spare, elegant chapter.
Glenn lets the facts speak for themselves. And what a lot they say about his truly dramatic career. It s downright riveting. The more so for its lack of embellishment.
Here are law-making precedents, spine-chilling gothic tales, media-grabbers and, yes, political intrigue. Here too are glimpses into Glenn s personal story, a saga of rise, recess and redemption worthy of its own volume. Here, vividly, is a portrait of my colleague and mentor - a prosecutor passionate about law and duty, righteous and unapologetic about what he saw to be his job, yet forthright and candid about his own failings. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the coda to the Pan-El chapter, where Glenn recounts his retraction and apology to Tan Koon Swan for what he came to think was a mistaken prosecution. Patently, he didn t need to; but it was right, so he did. This tidbit is surprising only because I had not heard the tale before; in every other way, it is classic Glenn Knight, arguably the Prosecutor of his time.
Eleanor Wong Associate Professor, NUS Faculty of Law July 2012
A S DEPUTY PUBLIC PROSECUTOR ( DPP ), I WAS INVOLVED in prosecuting many capital cases, which was no easy task because such cases have an impact on many people s lives. For instance, families of accused people had to listen to me build up cases against their loved ones, knowing that every word I said could potentially send them closer to the hangman s noose.
But I always prosecuted with an unwavering belief that the accused had committed the crime. I mulled over cases for a long time, went through all the evidence, visited sites where crimes had been committed and interviewed as many people as possible related to the crime, including the investigators. When the stakes are so high that someone s life depended on it, being thorough was the only way to go. Where there were doubts about a case that I couldn t reconcile in my mind, I would not put forward a case to be prosecuted.
Prosecution was my life s work - I loved the law and practised it for more than two decades until my disbarment. The period between the disbarment and readmission was especially frustrating because being a functioning lawyer was like breathing to me. I had spent such a long time on the job that there was a huge void in my life when I couldn t do it on a day-to-day basis anymore.
When Violet Phoon of Marshall Cavendish approached me to write this book, I spent a lot of time in deciding if I should do so. But I was persuaded, because it gave me the opportunity to set out the problems we DPPs faced before we prosecuted, and the difficulties when a prosecution was effected. As DPPs we could prosecute without fear or favour, from anyone.
Writing this book has allowed me to explain my fall from grace, and how and why I was prosecuted. In the end, it was crucial for me to explain that I was never prosecuted for graft because I had always felt that anyone, particularly a public servant, would have to be beyond reproach in this respect.
I am now a defence counsel and in this role, I have become part of the critical process to help the DPP in deciding whether to charge someone or not to. It has, at times, been quite difficult as I have come across instances where people were incorrectly charged. I have also seen a case where a bank officer who had allegedly forged a document was not charged and the case referred to a civil judge because, presumably, the prosecuting officers were too busy.
All said and done, however, I have a lot to be grateful for and I have to thank everyone who has been kind to me - especially God, because He helps me in my life.
I am grateful to the judges in the highest court in the land who were extremely kind to me - the Chief Justice Chan Sek Keong; his fellow judges of appeal, Mr Andrew Phang and Mr VK Rajah; and the Vice President of the Courts, Justice Chao Hick Tin.
I am grateful for the chance opportunity to have met top defence lawyer TT Rajah, VK Rajah s father, in 1970. That meeting left a deep impression on me. I was at court on my first case with the Attorney-General s Chambers and there were many cases scheduled to be heard. I did not know TT Rajah, but he spoke with me and agreed to let me mention my case before him, although he was entitled to mention his case first. I have never forgotten his kindness.
I spent about a year researching the cases before writing the book. My wife Veni and a good friend, Dr Ashok Segar, whom I am extremely grateful to, were given the chapters as I completed them. They helped me structure my book to make it accessible to lay readers as well as to those who would know the law.
I have to thank my wife Veni, particularly, for looking after my diet and giving me a new life as a diabetic patient. She has written a book, Low Carb Diet, which I would recommend to anyone concerned about diabetes and eating healthily.
Mr Thusita De Silva looked through my draft and helped me refine it further. He was responsible for the title The Prosecutor and I would like to thank him, and Ms Mindy Pang and Ms Lee Mei Lin from Marshall Cavendish, who helped edit the final part of my book.
I would like to thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Law, Mr K Shanmugam, Senior Counsel, who defended me in the final case in 1998, and Mr Harry Elias, Senior Counsel, who walked me through the first round in 1991.
I am grateful also to my good friend Susan Jacob, a great solicitor who helps me with my cases these days.
A great accountant friend of mine, Mr Micky Kon, helped me in the years that were so difficult.
Good friends of mine include Mr Justice Kan Ting Chiu, who has since retired and who never cared about my conviction, as well as Mr Justice Rajendran.
I would also like to thank those who helped me keep in touch with the work that I was used to, and among them are the late Tan Sri Tan Chin Tuan and Mr Howe Yoon Chong. They were great, caring people.
Thanks are also due to my old and dear brethren in law who helped me find my feet. They include Chia Quee Khee and my classmates in law: Gan Hiang Chye, Angela Lee, Susan Jacob, Srinivas Rai, Mak Kok Weng, Asokan and Vijay Kumar.
My gratitude is also extended to my doctors from Alexandra Hospital, who are now with the Khoo Teck Puat Hospital, Dr Ong Hean Yee and Dr Chin Thiam Wai, and of course, the CEO, Mr Liak Teng Lit. They gave me a new lease on life. I would also like to thank the young Dr Benjamin Chua, of the cardiovascular unit of the Singapore General Hospital, from whom I first learned that I could have a stent put in my leg. The surgery he did was so exciting, and it has helped me get over my diabetic foot problems