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CHARGED: Ong Pang Siew (left), 45, will stand trial for the murder of his stepdaughter Ong Pan Hui.
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A 45-YEAR-OLD Singaporean man was yesterday ordered to stand trial in the High Court for the murder of his China-born teenage stepdaughter.
Ong Pang Siew, a private bus driver, is accused of killing Ong Pan Hui, 15, at her mother's Marsiling flat on the night of Oct 20 last year.
The teenager came to Singapore in 2002, a few months after Ong wed her divorced mother, Madam Xiu Yanhong.
At the time of the girl's death, the couple had just finalised their divorce, and Pan Hui was on a week's break following her Primary School Leaving Examination.
Yesterday, a magistrate's court decided there was sufficient evidence for a murder trial to proceed against Ong.
The prosecution is expected to call 36 witnesses to testify against him.
Madam Xiu, who runs two beauty parlours, was one of the witnesses who attended the hearing to affirm her statement to the court.
She did not make eye contact with her former husband, apart from glaring at him at one point.
Other witnesses include her flatmates - both polytechnic students - who were in the flat at the time of the alleged killing.
If convicted of murder, Ong faces the mandatory death penalty.
A 10-day trial has been scheduled in August.
SELINA LUM
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