Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law (including the Penal Code, the Kidnapping Act and Arms Offences Act), such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder (if hurt was caused), kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.
From 1 January 2013 onwards, the amendments to the death penalty laws in Singapore allow judges to impose life imprisonment as the lowest punishment for capital drug trafficking and murder with no intention to kill, under certain conditions for eligibility. Despite the legal changes and increasing cases of life imprisonment for murder and drug crimes, Law Minister K. Shanmugam revealed in 2020 that through two public surveys on Singaporeans and non-Singaporeans, more than 80% of both groups responded that the death penalty is more effective than life imprisonment as a deterrent towards capital offences.
Since 20 August 1997, after the landmark appeal of Abdul Nasir Amer Hamsah, the definition of life imprisonment is changed to mean a term of incarceration for the rest of a convict's natural lifespan, although it carries a possibility of release on parole after a minimum period of 20 years behind bars based on the prisoner's conduct.
The most recent case of life imprisonment in Singapore was Sumiyati, an Indonesian maid convicted of murdering her employer's father in 2022.
History Origins and original definition of life imprisonment Since the British colonial period of Singapore, the laws of Singapore was enacted based on the laws of England, and life imprisonment was thus included as one of the legal penalties allowed for certain offences in Singapore, even after its independence from British colonial rule. In the past, the laws of Singapore decreed that life imprisonment was a fixed sentence of 20 years with the possibility of one-third remission of the sentence (13 years and 4 months) for good behaviour. This definition was recognised by the Court of Appeal in the judgement of Neo Man Lee, a schizophrenic killer who received a life term in 1989 for the 1984 case of culpable homicide of Judy Quek.
Extracted from Neo Man Lee v Public Prosecutor (1991):
We were of the opinion that the conditions for sentence to imprisonment for life were clearly satisfied in the present case and justified a life sentence. The appellant (Neo Man Lee) is clearly a continuing danger not only to himself but also to the public. The trial judge was of the view, which we shared, that he should be detained as long as it was permissible under the law. We might add that, with remissions, life imprisonment in Singapore may be reduced in practice to no more than 14 years, and the appellant may in fact be out of prison in another seven years.Neo Man Lee v Public Prosecutor , Court of Appeal (Singapore).
In June 1993, a question over the definition of life imprisonment was raised during the trial of Tan Swee Hoon, who was one of the two perpetrators responsible for the 1985 murder of an Indonesian fish merchant Nurdin Nguan Song. After Tan, who was arrested for another crime in 1992, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and unrelated armed robbery charges, the prosecution argued that Tan should be sentenced to the maximum penalty of life imprisonment, and in response, Tan's defence counsel Michael Teo and Liew Chen Mine argued that Tan should not be jailed for the rest of his natural life and it would be unfair to have the other jail terms for armed robbery to run consecutively with a life sentence for manslaughter, and this led to the trial court inquiring the prosecution about whether life imprisonment was supposed to be a jail term of 20 years or the remainder of one's natural life. However, the prosecution did not reply, and instead, they changed their request for Tan to serve 20 years' preventive detention. In the end, 41-year-old Tan was sentenced to 23 years in prison and 24 strokes of the cane. On the other hand, Tan's accomplice Loh Yoon Seong was caught in 1988, and he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1990, Loh lost his appeal in 1991, and his execution was carried out on an unknown date after the end of Tan's trial.
Since then, the definition of life imprisonment was still considered as a jail term of 20 years, but it would eventually be amended with effect from 20 August 1997 due to a landmark appeal that significantly raised the question behind the meaning of life imprisonment.
Change of definition from "life" to "natural life"
On 20 August 1997, Abdul Nasir bin Amer Hamsah, a Singaporean who received a life sentence (20 years) for the kidnapping of two policemen and a consecutive 18-year sentence for a separate case of robbery with hurt, submitted an appeal for the two sentences to run concurrently, which would mean he only need to serve 20 years in jail rather than 38 years (with the two terms served consecutively) if successful. But the Court of Appeal dismissed Abdul Nasir's appeal and ordered that he be serving 38 years in jail like the trial judge ordered. However, the three-judge panel, led by Chief Justice Yong Pung How, decide that it would be wrong to consider life imprisonment as a fixed jail term of 20 years and thus changed the definition of life imprisonment to a term of imprisonment for the prisoner's remaining lifespan. The amended definition is thus retroactively applied to future crimes committed after 20 August 1997. Since Abdul Nasir was already sentenced prior to this appeal verdict, his life sentence remained as a 20-year jail term under the previous law's definition.
The appeal of Abdul Nasir, titled "Abdul Nasir bin Amer Hamsah v Public Prosecutor SGCA 38", was since regarded as a landmark in Singapore's legal history as it changed the definition of life imprisonment from "life" to "natural life" under the law. It also affected the future cases of life imprisonment that occurred after 20 August 1997, where criminals like Sundarti Supriyanto, Tony Anak Imba, Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock and Yong Vui Kong were sentenced to the current version of natural life imprisonment instead of the old "20 years" version of life imprisonment.
The ruling of Abdul Nasir's appeal, however, did not affect any outstanding cases that happened before the 1997 changes to the law, and the old life imprisonment laws is still applicable for these cases, where the offender would not be imprisoned for life but for at most twenty years. In the case of wanted gunman Chin Sheong Hon, who was arrested in 2013 for using a revolver to rob and hurt a woman back in November 1981, the trial judge Pang Khang Chau highlighted that life imprisonment, as the maximum penalty for Chin's crime, should not be a term that lasts the remainder of his natural life but a term of twenty years' jail under the old laws before Abdul Nasir's case, since his crime was committed in 1981 while the previous laws were still in effect back then. 72-year-old Chin, in the end, was sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment in November 2022 despite the prosecution's submissions for a life sentence.
Introduction of life imprisonment for murder and drug trafficking
On 1 January 2013, the government of Singapore approved the changes to the death penalty laws, in which they introduced life imprisonment as the minimum punishment for murder offences with no intention to kill and capital drug trafficking, under certain conditions. For offenders who commit murder but had no intention to kill, they would receive life sentences with caning. This discretion is similarly applied to those convicted of drug trafficking, provided that they only act as couriers, suffering from impaired mental responsibility (e.g. depression), and/or substantively assisting the authorities in disrupting drug-related activities. Drug traffickers who were suffering from diminished responsibility will serve a mandatory life sentence without caning for their crimes, while those who acted as couriers would receive life terms and caning of not less than 15 strokes.
Minister for Law K. Shanmugam stated that these changes were a right step taken in view of the extremely low crime rate and increasing rate of public safety in Singapore, and such changes were made to allow judges to have more discretion in deciding between death and life in capital cases where their individual circumstances did not sufficiently call for the death penalty, which allowed more emphasis on mercy during sentencing while maintaining the need for retribution and deterrence. Shanmugam also quoted in his own words, "Justice can be tempered with mercy and, where appropriate, offenders should be given a second chance".
These legal reforms allowed offenders in some capital cases to be sentenced to life imprisonment instead of death, and it also allowed some death row inmates (notably Cheong Chun Yin and Yong Vui Kong) to be given the chance to undergo re-sentencing and had their sentences commuted to life. There were also subsequent cases, notably the case of Kho Jabing, that coined the main sentencing guidelines for murder, where it specified the required factors for judges to consider before imposing either the death penalty or life imprisonment, and it influenced the judgements of several murder cases like Micheal Anak Garing, Boh Soon Ho, Leslie Khoo Kwee Hock, Chia Kee Chen and Azlin Arujunah.
Landmark rulings relating to life imprisonment Sia Ah Kew and Others v Public Prosecutor (1974) On 14 March 1972, five men – Sia Ah Kew, Ho Kok Keng, Hoong Khung Cheong, Koo Ah Choo and Lim Chai Thiam – were involved in the kidnapping of Tjioe Kok Hwie, an affluent Indonesian businessman and they demanded from Tjioe's daughters and wife a ransom of S$50,000. The five kidnappers were later arrested and sentenced to death by two High Court judges Choor Singh and D. C. D'Cotta on charges of kidnapping by ransom, a crime which attracts either a death sentence or life imprisonment with/without caning under the Kidnapping Act.
After the end of their trial proceedings in October 1973, the five kidnappers filed their appeals for their death sentences to be reduced, and on 2 April 1974, the Court of Appeal, having duly considered the facts, decided to reduce the death sentences to life imprisonment for the kidnappers. In addition to their life sentences, the five men also received caning: out of the five, Ho received the highest number of 12 strokes of the cane, Hoong received nine while the remaining three were caned six strokes.
In their ruling, the three-judge panel, consisting of Wee Chong Jin, Frederick Arthur Chua and T. Kulasekaram, stated that despite the kidnappers being armed with pistols and daggers and had threatened Tjioe and his family, they did not cause physical harm to Tjioe and they treated him well while he was confined by the kidnappers. The judges were of the view that the death penalty should strictly be reserved for the worst cases of kidnapping and in cases where the circumstances did not signal an anxious need for capital punishment or spark an outrage of the community's feelings, life imprisonment (whether with caning or not) should be the default sentence for those convicted of kidnapping by ransom.Sia Ah Kew and Others v Public Prosecutor , Court of Appeal (Singapore).
Extracted from Sia Ah Kew and Others v Public Prosecutor :
In our opinion the maximum sentence prescribed by the legislature would be appropriate where the manner of the kidnapping or the acts or conduct of the kidnappers are such as to outrage the feelings of the community.