A few days prior to his execution at dawn last Friday, he had requested that his kidneys, liver and cornea be donated, his elder brother Tan Chor Juay told The Sunday Times on Saturday.

'He said that since he could not take these organs with him when he died, it would be better to use them to help others than let them go to waste,' Chor Juay, 48, said at the wake for his brother in Hougang Avenue 3.

The 42-year-old, notoriously known as the 'One-Eyed Dragon' because he was blind in his right eye, faced the gallows for murdering nightclub owner and former friend Lim Hock Soon.

On Feb 15, 2006, Tan tied up Mr Lim's wife, teenage daughter and maid in their Serangoon Avenue 4 flat. He then fired six bullets at Mr Lim, 40, in an adjacent room, allegedly over a money dispute.

Tan fled to Malaysia and was caught in a hotel room in Kuala Lumpur 10 days after the killing. He was extradited to Singapore in March and was sentenced in May 2007 to hang for the murder. Appeals fell through and his application for clemency from the President in August last year was turned down last week.

The Straits Times reported yesterday that it is believed ailing retail magnate Tang Wee Sung, 56, received one of Tan's kidneys.

In June last year, Mr Tang was caught for attempting to buy a kidney from an Indonesian, Mr Sulaiman Damanik, 26. Mr Tang was fined $17,000 and jailed for a day last September. The Indonesian man - together with another Indonesian who sold his kidney to an Indonesian woman here - was also jailed, and the case triggered massive public debate on whether the law should allow organs to be sold.

A spokesman for the Tang family confirmed that Mr Tang had received a kidney in a three-hour operation on Friday morning but did not want to say who it was from. He is now recovering in the National University Hospital.

'We wish to respect the privacy of the donor's family,' said the spokesman yesterday.

Tan's wife of eight years, 28-year-old Malaysian Siau Fang Fang, also did not want to talk about the recipients of her husband's organs.

Visibly tearful but composed at the wake yesterday, she said: 'It doesn't matter who it went to, as long as it saved a life. It's a good deed he wanted to do. I don't want to talk about this any more and make it seem like an advertisement.'

Chor Juay added: 'We don't know who received his organs and I'm sure the doctors won't tell us either. We only just learnt about this in the papers.'

He revealed that Tan had also requested that his ashes be scattered in the sea after his body is cremated today.

'He didn't want to be a burden to his family and he doesn't expect people to pray for him,' he said.

Gangster went peacefully

While Tan and his wife have no children, he has a Malaysian mistress, Ms Lian Yee Hwa, 28, who bore him a daughter, seven, and a son, two.

Both women reportedly get along 'like sisters' and even stayed together in Tan's three-room flat in Hougang whenever they came over from Malaysia to visit him in prison.

Calls to Ms Lian went unanswered yesterday, but in a phone interview with The Straits Times on Friday, she said she was not sure if she would attend the wake as she wanted to shield her children from the media attention.

Tan also leaves behind two sisters and four brothers. He was the youngest of seven siblings whose parents were food hawkers who came to Singapore from Guangdong, China, in the 1950s.

'At least they are not around any more; if not they will surely be very upset,' said Chor Juay. Their father and mother died of old age in 1997 and 1998, respectively.

He described Tan as a filial son who, though he lived with his in-laws in Muar, Johor, and ran a Chinese herb business and a temple there, would duly return to Singapore on their parents' death anniversaries to pay his respects.

He said their childhood years were spent in a three-room Kim Keat flat and the two brothers also lived together in a four-room flat in Potong Pasir later.

Tan moved to his Hougang flat when he married Madam Siau in 2001. She has since taken over the business in Malaysia.

Tan was part of the Ang Soon Tong gang which operates in both Malaysia and Singapore. The gang, which has existed since the 1950s, is known for conducting criminal activities such as gun-smuggling, drugs, illegal moneylending and illegal gambling.

Of his brother's gangster connections, Chor Juay said: 'He joined the gang at a very young age but never talked about his gang activities and he never brought his friends home. Even when he smoked, he would do it only by the kitchen window out of respect for me and my children.'

Chor Juay said his three teenage children were so fond of their uncle that when the family went for their last one-hour prison visit with Tan on Thursday, his 15-year-old son was so distraught he fainted in the visitor's room and had to be carried out.

Tan, on the other hand, appeared relaxed throughout the visits - which stretched from morning till evening from Tuesday till before his death, according to his brother.

He even 'kept on joking' with the more than 100 friends and relatives who went to bid their final farewell to him at Changi Prison. They took turns to see him in groups of two and three.

Tan did not have any specific requests for his final meal, though his favourite food was abalone, said Chor Juay.

The brother, who runs a stall selling ming jiang kueh, a Chinese snack, in Bendemeer, recounted how in March 2006, he cooked a lavish feast of abalone and shark's fin soup and took it to the Criminal Investigation Department where Tan was being held after his arrest.

Together with Tan's wife, mistress and the other siblings, the family sat together as Tan ate his last home-cooked meal.

'We were already prepared then for this outcome,' he said.

When asked what his brother's final words to him were, Chor Juay kept quiet for a long time. Then, wiping away a tear, he said: 'He knows I like to drink so he told me not to drink so much beer and to drink more tea.'

Chor Juay also noted that his brother's final three hours before his execution were spent with a Buddhist monk.

'He became much more religious the past few months. He used to have a really quick temper but, since going to jail, he had toned down a lot. The monk told us that he walked away peacefully.'

debyong@sph.com.sg

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