A former auxiliary police officer helped a colleague dispose of a discharged bullet to protect him from being prosecuted for committing a rash act.
Muhammad Dzul Adhar Azmi, 22, then a corporal with Certis Cisco, admitted to intentionally obstructing the course of justice by removing the used .38 bullet from his workplace at Tuas Checkpoint which had been discharged by his colleague, Gregory Lai Kar Jun.
Yesterday, Dzul was jailed for three weeks for the offence. He was fined $2,000 or one week's jail in default for failing to report Lai's offence to the police, having reason to believe that the 23-year-old had committed a rash act endangering life while playing a game akin to Russian roulette on Aug 15 last year.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sarah Shi said Dzul was present when Lai removed all five bullets from the chamber of the revolver and then loaded one.
Lai spun the chamber and pressed the trigger but nothing happened. A bullet was fired when he did it a second time.
He then placed the remaining four bullets back in the revolver.
Lai subsequently found the used bullet and told Dzul of his idea to put a bullet in a toilet bowl and claim he had lost two bullets while using the toilet. Dzul agreed to the plan.
Lai hid the used bullet in a traffic wand. He then went to the portable toilet where he disposed of a different bullet in the toilet bowl.
Lai then reported the matter to the operations room.
Meanwhile, Dzul retrieved the used bullet from the traffic wand and placed it in his cigarette box. Early the next day, he threw it into the Bedok Reservoir.
Lai has been charged with committing a rash act to endanger life, intentionally obstructing the course of justice and giving false information to a public servant. His case is pending.
Pleading for leniency, Dzul's lawyer Rajan Supramaniam said his client lost his job of five months as a result of the offences. He said the truck assistant is remorseful and struggling to make ends meet.
Asked by District Judge Crystal Ong why he had committed the offences, Mr Supramaniam said Dzul was "blinded by his loyalty to his colleague''.
Judge Ong said what Dzul did out of misguided loyalty was foolish and the sentence had to be severe to deter people from obstructing the course of justice.
