Saturday, May 28, 2011

Seafood boss Eu Lim Hoklai gets 10-year jail term


By Selina Lum



A seafood-stall boss who in April, escaped the death sentence for the 2006 killing of his Chinese mistress, was on Friday jailed for 10 years. -- PHOTO: SHIN MIN



A SEAFOOD-stall boss who in April, escaped the death sentence for the 2006 killing of his Chinese mistress, was on Friday jailed for 10 years.



Prosecutors had sought life imprisonment for Eu Lim Hoklai, 57, but Justice Kan Ting Chiu did not think it was appropriate.



After sentencing, Eu's 86-year-old mother - who was in court with a few relatives - broke down in tears and told her son's lawyer, Mr Subhas Anandan, in Hokkien: 'You saved my child.'



The 10-year jail term was backdated to the date Eu was first remanded in June 2006. With the usual one-third remission for good behaviour, he could be released from prison in just over a year.



Eu had been given the mandatory death penalty by the High Court in 2009 for murdering Madam Yu Hongjin, 30, in a massage parlour she ran in Ang Mo Kio on June 18, 2006. He appealed against the conviction in September 2010.



In April 2011, the appeal court set aside his murder conviction and found him guilty of a lesser charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, saying that it appears to have been a death caused in the heat of the moment, either upon a sudden fight or grave and sudden provocation. The appeal court said there was sufficient objective evidence to show that an intense struggle had taken place at the massage parlour.

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