A 41-year-old aircraft technician, overcome with rage when his wife moved in with a younger man, met the pair - then stabbed his love rival with a metal file that he had sharpened in his workplace.
Chinese national Chen Jianghong was sentenced to 28 months in jail and three strokes of the cane yesterday for voluntarily causing grievous hurt in November last year.
His victim, 31-year-old Deng Yiwei, spent five days in hospital being treated for multiple wounds to his chest and abdomen, and cuts on his arm.
Chen's 31-year-old wife, Chinese national Huang Dan, moved out of their apartment to live with her lover last April, after they began having problems with their marriage.
The court heard that when he met Mr Deng last October, he told him in Mandarin that "the hatred on the person who steals your wife will not allow you and that person to exist together".
Chen later bought a 15cm-long metal file at a hardware shop when he could not find knives for sale. He used a grinder to sharpen it at his workplace.
About a month later, he met his wife and Mr Deng in Woodlands Avenue 6, taking with him the sharpened metal file.
Chen chased Mr Deng to a nearby badminton court before stabbing him several times.
Asking for at least 30 months' jail and caning, Deputy Public Prosecutor Ryan David Lim told the court that Chen had "ample time to consider and think of how to carry out the act" as he had bought and sharpened the file a month before the crime.
He added that the wounds suffered by the victim were "fairly serious".
In mitigation, Chen's lawyer Foo Ho Chew said that his client had "suffered the anguish of his wife's infidelity".
He said that Chen has two young children from the same relationship and elderly parents to care for back in China.
The lawyer added that Mr Deng has since forgiven Chen.
However, the prosecution argued that the act of forgiveness should not have an effect on the sentence.
For voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon, Chen could have been jailed for life, fined or caned.
