DNA evidence shows the accused had sex with her before she died
By
Khushwant Singh
Construction worker Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus is charged with murdering Ms Yulia Afriyanti, whose body was found naked in a cardboard box (left) on the third floor of the condo at the worksite where he worked.
THE trial of a murdered maid in a tragic love triangle began yesterday at the High Court. Ms Yulia Afriyanti, is alleged to have died at the hands of her lover in a crime of passion.
The 25-year-old was found naked, stuffed in a cardboard box in the uncompleted Viz@Holland condominium in Queensway on Dec 16, 2007. She had been strangled.
Construction worker Kamrul Hasan Abdul Quddus, 35, a Bangladeshi national who worked at the site, is now on trial for her murder.
In court, Deputy Public Prosecutor Peter Koy said that although Kamrul denies killing the woman, there was DNA evidence that he had sex with Ms Yulia before her death. There is also proof that Kamrul told the police lies, he added. According to the prosecution, Kamrul met Ms Yulia at a social gathering in 2005. They became intimate a year later.
In September 2007, Ms Yulia told her employers and friends that she was returning to Indonesia and would be marrying Kamrul there. A month later, the marriage was called off. Ms Yulia confided in her employers that Kamrul was already married in Bangladesh with two children.
She then began seeing Mr Joseph Guerzon Corpuz, 25, a Filipino construction worker here. They too became intimate. They planned to marry but she never broke up with Kamrul and on Dec 9, 2007, she told Mr Corpuz she would be marrying Kamrul in January.
Despite this, investigations revealed that Ms Yulia continued her frequent and intimate telephone conversations with Mr Corpuz.
On Dec 15, she met Kamrul while taking her employer's dog for its evening walk from a residence in Grange Road. He then returned to his dormitory in Kaki Bukit in the eastern part of Singapore but at 11.30pm, he took a bus to his worksite.
Telephone records indicate that he made several calls to Ms Yulia around 2am on Dec 16. Less than eight hours later, a construction worker found Ms Yulia's body in a cardboard box - measuring 1m long, 0.75m wide and 0.75m deep - on the third floor.
The punishment for murder is a death sentence. Legal aid is provided by the state in capital cases and lawyers Ang Sin Teck and Rajan Supramaniam have been assigned to defend Kamrul. The trial continues today.
