Six men, who beat an unemployed 52-year-old man to death, were on Friday convicted of culpable homicide, not amounting to murder.

The men, aged between 20 and 25, face jail terms and caning for their roles in a March 2011 fight at Tiong Bahru park that left Mr Goh Ho Leong, 52, with multiple injuries including skull fractures and bleeding in the brain. He died two days later in hospital.

The men are Anandraj Manimaran and S. Karthikesu, both 21, Segu Jamaldeen Nafil Mohamed, Muhizin Khan and Suriya Thankamany, all 20, and Abdul Samad Mohamed Kasim, 25. Prosecutors are seeking jail terms of between six and eight years for the men, who will be sentenced on Oct 14 after pleading guilty on Friday. But defence lawyers pleaded for leniency, highlighting the lack of premeditation and the provocative role their victim had played.

Four other people who had been arrested over the same matter had been given discharges not amounting to an acquittal. The fight on the night of March 8 in 2011 broke out after three of the accused entered a public toilet together with three men uninvolved to the case, to resolve a dispute. One of them pushed open the door of a toilet cubicle to see if anyone was inside. This angered the victim, who was inside. After some heated words, he left and later returned with a bicyle chain. At this point, all six men got involved in the confrontation and started to assault their victim.