SINGAPORE. MAN TO HANG FOR MURDER OF CHINESE GIRLFRIEND

a Singaporean man was sentenced to hang for murdering his Chinese girlfriend and chopping up her remains. Factory supervisor Leong Siew Chor, 51, was handed the mandatory death sentence for killing 22-year-old Liu Hong Mei on June 15, 2005. After strangling the woman with a bath towel in the master bedroom of his flat, Leong, who is married with three children, used a chopper and a rubber mallet to hack her body into seven parts. He flushed her entrails down the toilet. Leong placed Liu's body parts in plastic bags, packed them in boxes and threw them into a rubbish bin as well as the Kallang and Singapore rivers. The body parts were later discovered, leading to his arrest.
"I find the accused guilty as charged and convict him of murder," said High Court Judge Tay Yong Kwang. "It was a most disgusting and despicable murder."
Tay dismissed Leong's defiance that her death was part of an elaborate suicide pact between the lovers after Leong rejected her offer to move with her to China. The judge gave credence to the prosecution's contention that he killed the woman after stealing her credit card and using it to withdraw 2,000 Singapore dollars (1,266 US). After Liu had reported the theft to the police, Leong was afraid that he would be discovered as the culprit and his adulterous affair exposed to his family, so he had to silence her, the prosecution argued.