A sergeant with the Central Narcotics Bureau ( CNB) allegedly lied under oath to deceive a colleague who was being tried for assaulting a man to extort a confession for drug offenses.
The officer who lied,  , Muhammad Heykal Rahman, 36, was jailed for one-and-a-half years on Monday ( Dec 23 ) after pleading guilty to a charge of intentionally giving false evidence.
Another crime of giving an inspection agent false information about the assault was deemed for sentencing.
Heykal’s partner, Vengedesh Raj Nainar Nagarajan, stood trial for beating up a assume in order to extort a confession from him. He , was found innocent and jailed for five times in 2022.
The target of the assault was  , Sivabalan Kanniappan. On January 2, 2017, he was stopped for examination as he entered Singapore through Woodlands Checkpoint.
A jacket bag hidden in Sivabalan’s motorcycle’s exterior box contained a blue bundle suspected to have controlled substances.
Sivabalan was given to Heykal-based CNB staff. As an agent who could communicate Tamil was needed, Raj was even activated.
In Sivabalan’s second speech, he denied understanding of the blue bag.
But even before arriving at CNB’s company at Woodlands Checkpoint, Raj had “already concluded that Sivabalan was not being honest”, prosecutors said.
” Raj wanted to get a “quick statement” from Sivabalan but that he could start a follow-up procedure to prosecute the drug user,” he said.
In order to effectively extort Sivabalan into a statement he knew about the pack of drugs, he brought him to a bathroom in the CNB office, punched him, and punched him.
Heykal was existing in the bathroom during the abuse, the prosecutors added.
Sivabalan testified during Raj’s demo that Heykal was watching him during the first assault and that he had pleaded with him to stop the beating when the two men were only at one point.
According to Sivabalan, Heykal blamed him for not telling the truth in the first instance and said:” I cannot do anything. If he beat you, finally he beat you”.
On May 6, 2021, Heykal testified as a defense see.
He claimed he was distracted by Sivabalan’s and his phone’s activities and was distracted by what was happening. He denied witnessing any abuse.
Heykal also claimed Sivabanalan and Raj both spoke in a typical voice while Sivabalan and Raj both testified that the interviewing had taken place in a quiet voice.
Additionally, Heykal was unable to explain why he continued to use the restroom with Raj and the target.
Heykal “provided pretty cautious answers,” according to the prosecution,” suggesting that he was either not certain of what happened, or he was withholding some details” when questioned about what transpired when he and Sivabalan were by themselves in the bathroom.
The information that Heykal gave on the remain, including that Raj had never assaulted Sivabalan, was really false, they added.
Additionally, Closed-circuit broadcast footage revealed that Heykal was in the bathroom when Raj launched his second assault on Sivabalan.
For Heykal, Deputy Public Prosecutor Joseph Gwee and Assistant Public Prosecutor Asran Samad requested one-and-a-half times to two years in jail.
When he lied under oath, they made it clear that he had almost a decade of knowledge in CNB and was an experienced law enforcement officer.
According to them, Heykal’s crimes spanned three times, starting with when he gave false information to investigators in 2018 and ending with false testimony at the trial in 2021.
During this period, it was available to Heykal to correct the record at any time, they stressed.
The lawyers added that his actions may have put the trial judge at fault for acquitting Raj and put him in danger of losing the case.
Heykal’s do also harmed the popularity of CNB, they argued.
Giving false evidence in court can result in jail time for up to seven times and a good.