SINGAPORE - A recalcitrant offender, who has been in and out of jail multiple times for offences including drug- and violence-related ones, was sentenced to 12 years’ preventive detention on Tuesday after attacking two people with a knife.

In preventive detention, a repeat offender aged over 30 receives a substantial period of imprisonment to protect the public. The detention order can last up to 20 years.

Abdul Karim V. Sickander, 59, was last released from prison in April 2020 after serving time behind bars following a drug conviction in June 2015. He was then placed on a remission order and was required to keep out of trouble until October 2022.

Despite this, he reoffended in June 2022, using a knife to attack two people, including his former flatmate.

On Tuesday, he was ordered to spend an additional 100 days behind bars for breaching the remission order.

In May 2023, he pleaded guilty to four charges, including voluntarily causing grievous hurt with a dangerous weapon and drug offences.

Before the knife attack, he had been renting a flat in Yishun with a 62-year-old Singaporean man and had started a relationship with a woman known only as Tuti.

Abdul Karim later suspected his flatmate of having an affair with Ms Tuti.

In earlier proceedings, Deputy Public Prosecutor Matthew Choo said the suspicions were unfounded.

The flatmate moved out of the unit after Abdul Karim repeatedly confronted him over his suspicions.

On June 23, 2022, Abdul Karim returned home at about 8.20pm after consuming alcohol and methamphetamine.

When he could not find his former flatmate and Ms Tuti at home, he took two knives and left the flat.

At about 8.25pm, the former flatmate and his Indonesian girlfriend, 42, went to the flat to pick up some of his clothes.

When they reached the 10th-storey flat, they noticed that the lights were on and assumed Abdul Karim was inside.

To avoid a confrontation, they went down to the void deck, and the girlfriend called the police.

The couple later saw a police car near the block and assumed the police were engaging Abdul Karim. The pair then took the lift to go to the flat.

Abdul Karim, who was at the 10th-floor lift lobby at this point, saw them when the lift doors opened. He entered the lift and slashed his former flatmate.

When the girlfriend tried to stop him, Abdul Karim slashed her as well. She managed to get out of the lift and dashed to the common corridor, shouting for help.

The lift doors then closed with the two men inside. Abdul Karim continued slashing and stabbing the victim as the lift descended to the first storey.

Police officers responding to the girlfriend’s call arrived at the scene and arrested Abdul Karim.

The victims were taken to Khoo Teck Puat Hospital.

The man, who suffered multiple lacerations, underwent emergency surgery. He was discharged on June 28, 2022, and given 25 days of hospitalisation leave.

His girlfriend, who also had surgery, was discharged on June 26, 2022, and given 14 days of hospitalisation leave.

Both suffered permanent scarring.