Sunday, March 10, 2013

A Matter Of Credibility

The death of Shane Todd, 31, an electrical engineer who worked for Singapore-based Institute for Microelectronics (IME), was treated by the Singapore Police Force (SPF) as suicide. Not so, says his family. Shane had defensive wounds on his body and hands, and bruised knuckles indicate he was trying unsuccessfully to slip his fingers under a garrote that could have ended his young and promising life.

Rick Todd, his father, told the Washington Times he “made it known” to Ashok Kumar Mirpuri, Singapore’s ambassador to the United States, that the family wants a full FBI investigation.
“We need there to be independent oversight [of the Singaporean police investigation] by an agency that we have confidence in,” he said, adding that police in Singapore “repeatedly lied” to the family about the circumstances of Shane’s death and about the progress of their investigation.

A SPF statement in February maintained that its procedures for investigating cases, in particular those involving deaths, are of high international standards. According to their report, Shane Todd allegedly hanged himself in the toilet of his apartment in Chinatown last year. Their spokesman claimed all unnatural death cases are investigated thoroughly and that police work closely with the pathologist and other relevant experts.

The parents of David Hartanto Widjaja, 21, weren't too satisfied either with the official investigation of their son's violent death in March 2009. The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) student was alleged to have knifed his supervisor who hailed from China, Associate Professor Chan Kap Luk, 45, in the back during a discussion in his office, and then slit his own wrists before fleeing and falling four floors to his death. When the shocked parents flew in from Indonesia, the crime scene was cleaned of all blood traces, and NTU had erased computer records associated with his son. It was as if David never existed.

Iwan Piliang, the head of a group formed by David’s parents and supporters, was upset the witnesses brought before the Coroner's Inquiry were “not to David’s advantage.” The group had wanted to meet with the NTU officials, but was not entertained. A similar request to meet Professor Chan, who was reported to have been wounded by David with a fruit knife missing a handle, was also rejected. The disturbing autopsy report that David’s family received documented 36 gaping wounds, of which 14 were from stab wounds.

“I, on behalf of David Hartanto Widjaja’s family, ask the (Indonesian) government to help David get the justice he deserves,” Piliang had said. “David’s death was part of a conspiracy.” But Jakarta Post quoted national police spokesman Abu Bakar Nataprawira as saying they were not able to investigate, as the death occurred in Singapore.

It looks like the SPF has to work on its international credibility.

26 comments:

  1. Hey where u got that news on David? Seems ST never report that David sustain so many wounds? Did the prof stab him or he stabbed himself? 36 wounds?! Did he jumped or was he pushed to his death?

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    1. http://www.asiaone.com/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20090520-142710.html

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  2. yes. this is a curious case. wonder why nobody reported more on it.

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    1. Similar to Shane, David was working on a Computer Vision (CV) technology project, mostly applied in the entertainment and military industries, at the time of his death.

      A week after the tragedy, a 24-year-old Zhou Zheng, a Chinese national, who was an Infocomm Project Officer who worked in the same team as David & Professor Chan found committed suicide in his apartment.

      If people are still not connecting the dots, they are really daft.

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  3. Probably not...this worry about police proficiency actually lowers the crime rate becos pp will then steer wide and clear of any minutely possible illegal matter for fear of being made a fall guy.

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  4. one law .... under different circumstances; different interpretation and application?

    white has a bigger penis?

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  5. What about foreigners who seem to get the better end of the bargain when they run foul of the law here? Personally I don't give a damn when foreigners are the aggrieved party, too many of them these years. Can't take care of everybody when your own is neglected.

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    1. The two cases mentioned above indicated that the offenses were committed by foreigners (China-related, 1 is related to a China-company and the other a Chinese Professor) and the law seemed to have ruled in favour of them. I guess it is alright since we are protecting our own citizens? After all, Singapore is part of China?

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    2. Love that cynical last sentence!

      Must be so, no?
      Or are we another state of India or the Phillipines?

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  6. Those who says is none of our business is just plain naive and idiots!

    What it says is that our police and enforcement team are corrupted! Enough that they will do such a cover up on a broad day light? If they can do it on an international scale, what aren't they incapable of in the local scale?!!

    WAke up people@!#$%^@ if you don't smell fish, you deserved to be fried!

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  7. Is that how woffles woo got away from jail? Even AG is on his side. What can we do?

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  8. Too many questionable loop holes.

    1) What's IME role in connection with Huawei on this project, and motives of involving Shane on it? Both parties are not talking even though they said he is not working on anything classified? So why was Shane afraid of his safety?

    2) Where are the bolting and signs of pulley/rope set up which he had used to hang himself, and was inconsistent with the crime scene?

    3) His girlfriend is a nurse and did not detect any strange behavior or stress signals from Shane. He would have gone to her don't you think? And why kill yourself when you have a new job waiting for you to go back to, which he was very upbeat? Besides, who the hell writes a suicide note to thank his employer before his death when he didn't even like them!! And saying things like he has let the family down...only asian writes letters like that! And things mentioned in the note that was not even true. Clear set up.

    4) No explanation as to how his other bruise injuries found on his hands, head and neck consistent with hanging? He clearly got into a fight prior, but with whom?

    5) Who has accessed to his computer and why?

    Has Singapore becoming a mafia land behind all the casino glitz and pangsae clubs and F1 rings for the rich and sleazy to mingle. Your daughters, nieces, girlfriends or wives will be prostituting very soon. Once you let the rotten rats in, the rest will follow. Enjoy your new found Monaco.

    http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/c8611aae-867f-11e2-ad73-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2NCW6wNhy

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    1. methinks note is the dead giveaway.
      todd said he didn't want to be burden to family.
      lol. westerners don't say this kind of shit.
      want to manufacture also make it convincing lah.
      so many dodgy parts not coming together.
      either sloppy or plain cover up.

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    2. From the FT Magazine:

      "The police said he had drilled holes into his bathroom wall, bolted in a pulley, then slipped a black strap through the pulley and wrapped it around the toilet several times. He then tethered the strap to his neck and jumped from a chair. Shane, 6ft 1in and nearly 200lb, hanged himself from the bathroom door, the autopsy report said.

      So the Todds, along with two of Shane’s younger brothers, John and Dylan, were unnerved by what they didn’t see as they crossed the threshold. The front door was unlocked and there was no sign of an investigation – no crime-scene tape, no smudges from fingerprint searches. “The first thing I did was make a beeline for the bathroom,” Mrs Todd recalled. She wanted to see exactly how Shane had died – and she saw nothing that fitted the police description. The marble bathroom walls had no holes in them. Nor were there any bolts or screws. The toilet was not where the police had said."

      Maybe the SPF investigated the wrong crime scene?

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    3. http://video.ft.com/v/2210033747001/Probe-into-Singapore-death-turns-political

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  9. The greatest challenge is reduce wage gap, overpopulation, TFR, high cost of living?

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  10. For those dodo who do not know what is going on and cannot decide if it is suicide or murder, take a look at this video

    http://outfront.blogs.cnn.com/2013/02/28/was-shane-todd-murdered-police-say-suicide-family-says-he-was-killed/

    It shows explicitly the injury sustained by Shane. No doubt to me that he is murdered, as no sane human will injure himself to such extend if he is going to kill himself. And beside why will he waste his time packing and preparing to go back to USA if he is going to kill himself anyway ? You are talking about outstanding talent that is very sober, clear and ambitious.

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    1. Good link. Very fishy.

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  11. SG has alot of suicide cases.
    They are very convenient, open and shut cases.
    No need to investigate further, let's move on.
    Find them in the river or suicides attributing to stress.
    Plus they don't contribute to the crime rates, so despite 5.3m resident population, as long as you 'remove ' them , they don't add to unnecessary statistics. Everybody look good.
    But sometimes they use one method too often, it become very obvious.
    What do you think?

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  12. A big mess now. You just have to search Shane Todd Singapore and you can see that his story is running wild in western press. Worst is that the westerners see SPF as initially running a very poor job of investigation and trying to cover up, but subsequently yielded under the pressure of their powerful senator, purse-string controlling, Baucus. Todd is not Widjaja, Indonedia is not USA. To quote a reader in FT.com, "Reputational damage doesn't get any worse than this. What scientist is going to work in singapore now?"

    Decades of efforts and billions of dollars spent trying to build up the reputation of R&D down the drain, all because of the habit of cover-ups and poor crisis management.

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  13. white man has a bigger and longer dick?

    i like fairy tale

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  14. To link to NTU case is exaggerating.

    Just think if Widjaja is indeed stabs so many times(such injury) before he walk all the way out of corridors without anyone notice, possible? Also should there be blood all over the floors.
    Why no students see anyone with Widjaja when he is at the edge?

    Also why should NTU or Govt. risk for the prof. seriously.
    He hold top secret of nuclear bomb or wat?

    Next script.

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  15. The autopsy is not Shane Todd's they are all different.

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