On 23 November 2015, after being severely assaulted by his mother and her boyfriend the day before, Mohamad Daniel Mohamad Nasser, who was a month short of his third birthday, died at his mother's rented flat in Telok Blangah Crescent. Daniel sustained about 41 external injuries caused by abuse. Investigations and sources revealed that the couple had often beaten the boy, told him to stand in the living room or kitchen for hours as punishment, and force-fed him dry chilli. This abuse lasted for a month or so before Daniel died from a head injury inflicted by the couple.
Daniel's biological mother, 41-year-old Zaidah (who goes by one name), and her 46-year-old boyfriend Zaini Jamari were arrested and put on trial in June 2016 for the fatal abuse of the boy. The couple were both found guilty of multiple counts of causing grievous hurt and child abuse, and a month later, Zaidah was handed a jail term of 11 years while Zaini was given ten years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane.
The brutality of the case brought shock to the whole of Singapore and led to calls for greater involvement from the community to prevent child abuse, and together with several other high-profile cases of abused vulnerable persons, the death of Daniel prompted the government to introduce harsher laws in 2018 to curb child abuse, which included the judges' discretion to enhance the punishment of offenders who commit crimes against vulnerable people (including the elderly, domestic maids and young children).
Background Mohamad Daniel Mohamad Nasser, a Singaporean, was born in December 2012. Daniel's parents married in early 2012 at Batam, Indonesia. However, the marriage was short-lived, because during that same year, Daniel's biological father Mohamad Nasser Abdul Gani discovered that his wife was having an affair, and this led to a divorce after a few months of marriage. Unknown to Nasser at that stage, his ex-wife Zaidah, a cleaner who goes by one name, was already pregnant with Daniel, who was born a month after Nasser was sent to prison for drug offences. Nasser, who was sentenced to 18 months' jail for drug abuse in December 2012, was only notified of Daniel's existence when an officer brought him a document to acknowledge his relation to Daniel. Nasser was released in June 2014, and tried to search for his son, but his search lasted for at least a year and he never found his son.
Sources revealed that before her short-lived marriage to Nasser, Zaidah was married to another person in 1991 before it ended for unknown reasons. Daniel was Zaidah's fourth child, and her three older children from her first marriage did not live with Zaidah. After her second marriage to Daniel's father ended, Zaidah began a relationship with a cleaner named Zaini Jamari, and she gave birth to a daughter (Zaidah's fifth child) in March 2015. As of November 2015, Zaidah was pregnant with her sixth child. Both Zaidah and Zaini were previously convicted and jailed for various offences, including morphine abuse, housebreaking and theft.
At the time he was one month old, Daniel and his mother were living in a cramped storeroom at an industrial building in Ubi Road. When he was one month old, in January 2013, Daniel was entrusted to the care of his first caregiver Masita Hussin, who agreed to take care of Daniel, and she would went on to care for the boy for two years and seven months, before another caregiver Yusnita Mohamed Idrus would take over. During the time when Daniel was living with Masita, Zaidah and her boyfriend were both renting a flat at Telok Blangah. Zaidah would visit her son about once a month and also would pay Masita about S$250 for taking care of her son, but her weekly visits and payments were often irregular. In mid-October 2015, Daniel returned to live with his mother at the Telok Blangah flat she rented, after Yusnita could not continue to caregive Daniel due to her needing to receive an operation.
Abuse and death From 18 October 2015 to 22 November 2015, over a period of 25 days, two-year-old Mohamad Daniel Mohamad Nasser was subjected to cruel and sadistic physical torture by his mother Zaidah and her boyfriend Zaini Jamari.
Although the couple's motive behind the abuse was never known, sources revealed that Zaidah and Zaini kicked and slapped Daniel daily and often required him to stand with his hands on his head while wearing only a nappy as punishment, and of these instances of abuse, several were recounted in detail from the court documents and media covering the case. On one occasion, on 21 October 2015, Daniel was punished for unspecified reasons and told to stand beside a fan as punishment. When the boy grew sleepy and could not stand straight, Zaidah was angered and slapped him in the face several times, scolding him in Malay for not wanting to sleep in the night while choosing to sleep during the day. When Daniel fell, Zaidah kicked her son in the stomach, before she grabbed his hand and pulled him up, ordering him to stand in the kitchen. On another occasion on 9 November 2015, Zaidah forcefully kicked her son on the back while he was seen standing with his hands on his head, and she proceeded to kick her son on the ribs with great force, and this incident had similarly occurred once again six days later on 15 November 2015. Three days later, on 18 November 2015, Zaidah beaten up her son by repeatedly hitting him on the face and chest, so much so with great force that Daniel fell and his mouth had bled.
On 22 November 2015, the day before Daniel died, 41-year-old Zaidah, who was then pregnant with her sixth child, tried to feed Daniel breakfast but after the boy refused to eat, Zaidah angrily slapped him in the face thrice, and both Zaidah and her boyfriend slapped Daniel repeatedly. Daniel fell down due to the beatings, but Zaidah remained undeterred and continued to abuse her son by stamping on her son's chest with her leg before she pulled him up by his arm. Later that evening, Daniel was told to stand near a fan as a punishment. Daniel, who was exhausted, rested his hand on a bed frame but the couple spotted this and they both slapped him. Subsequently, Daniel laid down on the floor and closed his eyes, and Zaini caught sight of this and hence force-fed the boy two spoonfuls of dried chilli. Zaini forcibly brought Daniel to the toilet, washed his mouth and ordered Daniel to stand in the living room.
Shortly after this, Daniel appeared faint and the couple mercilessly battered the boy once again. Daniel was being slapped and also kicked onto the chest and stomach, and during this particular assault, Daniel's head hit the ground and sustained a head injury. Zaidah later passed Zaini some dried chilli and he forced it down the boy's throat until mucus came out of Daniel's nose. After the brutal abuse, Zaini took Daniel to the toilet and washed his face, and put him to bed thereafter. This time round, the assault proved fatal, as Daniel died during his sleep. His death was only discovered the next morning on 23 November 2015, when the couple were unable to wake him up at around 8am. Zaidah's landlady and her niece, who were also at the flat itself, called the ambulance despite the couple's attempt to stop them both, and the paramedics arrived soon after, tending to Daniel before he was pronounced dead at 9am, after they found that there was no heartbeat. An autopsy was conducted on Daniel, and it was found that he sustained about 41 external injuries all over his body; the forensic report also certified that Daniel's head injury was the cause of his death, as there was bleeding in the brain.
Legal process and sentence Arrest and plea of guilt
When the police was first involved in the case, both Zaidah and Zaini Jamari lied to the police that Daniel had a habit of pinching himself and inflicting self-harm, and even lied that he accidentally fell and hurt his head. However, through further investigations, the police, by unspecified means, managed to discover that Zaidah and Zaini were responsible for abusing and murdering Daniel, and hence, the couple were arrested on suspicion of killing the boy and charged in court.
On 23 June 2016, the couple were brought to trial at a district court, not for murder (which carried the death penalty) but for lesser charges of voluntarily causing grievous hurt. Principal District Judge Bala Reddy presided over the hearing, in which the couple each pleaded guilty in court to one count of voluntarily causing grievous hurt to Daniel under Section 322 of the Penal Code, and three counts of ill-treating him under the Children and Young Persons Act. 41-year-old Zaidah also faced 26 additional counts of child abuse while 46-year-old Zaini also faced another 18 counts of child abuse for mistreating Daniel. The couple's sentencing trial was scheduled to take place on 5 July 2015.
In their final submissions on sentence, the prosecution sought at least nine years' jail and caning between nine to 12 strokes for Zaini, and they also called for Zaidah to serve at least ten years, which included a 12-month incarceration period in lieu of caning due to the law prohibiting women from being caned. Deputy Public Prosecutor (DPP) Claire Poh highlighted the multiple aggravating factors behind the crime, stating that Daniel was a vulnerable victim who did not have the maturity and physical strength to protect himself and could not escape the flat and abuse. DPP Poh argued in her submissions that Daniel, given his young and vulnerable age, should be nurtured in a safe and secure environment at the very sancity called home, and in contrast to this expectation, his living conditions were as harsh and inhumane as those of a "concentration camp". The prosecutor also pointed out that another aggravating factor was that both the accused harboured a "callous lack of remorse" for their actions, reasons behind which they did not account for and they were also viewing the boy's plight with "cool indifference", given that they consciously lied to paramedics and police that the injuries were accidental and self-inflicted by Daniel.
During the submissions stage, the trial judge noted that the couple showed no emotion when viewing the photographs and CCTV footage capturing the horrific signs of abuse on Daniel, which was a testament to their lack of remorse. The couple reportedly took the chance to ask for a lighter sentence, although it was not confirmed if they were represented by counsel during the proceedings. For the most serious charge of causing grievous hurt, the couple faced the maximum sentence of ten years' imprisonment, plus a possible fine or caning. For each count of ill-treatment of a child, it warranted the maximum penalty of four years in jail and/or a fine of up to S$4,000 per charge.
Sentencing of the couple On 5 July 2016, Principal District Judge Bala Reddy delivered his decision on sentence. Before passing sentence, District Judge Reddy admonished the couple for their ruthless and callous conduct, and for their lack of remorse. He found that the abusive acts committed against Daniel amounted to "senseless brutality" and stated that a young child like Daniel did not deserve to be treated with abuse and pain "at the hands of the very persons who should have been his source of support, comfort and happiness". District Judge Reddy also briefly summed up that for having prematurely and mercilessly ended the life of two-year-old Mohamad Daniel Mohamad Nasser with extreme violence and unrelenting cruelty, a harsh sentence was warranted to correspond with the cold-blooded nature of the crime.
In particular, District Judge Reddy turned his attention to Zaidah's conduct, condemning her for committing such a heinous crime towards her own son as the victim's biological mother in this case, and he quoted:
"The idea of a mother causing such grievous hurt and ill-treatment of the baby she had carried for nine months is simply incomprehensible."