Felicia Teo's death: Man who dumped, burned corpse jailed

When their friend Felicia Teo died in June 2007 after all three had allegedly consumed Ecstasy, the two men stuffed her body into a carton box.

The duo then took the box to a deserted location at Punggol Track 24, dug a hole, put the box in, and burned it before covering it up.

On Friday, Ahmad Danial Mohamed Rafa'ee, 37, was sentenced to 26 months' jail after admitting to four charges.

They included unlawfully depositing Ms Teo's corpse in a public place, dishonest misappropriation of her possessions, giving false evidence to two police officers and fabricating false evidence.

Two other charges of giving false information and withholding information from a public servant were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Ahmad's accomplice, Indonesian Ragil Putra Setia Sukmarahjana, remains at large.

The court heard that Ahmad is expected to be released soon, as the sentence was backdated to his arrest on Dec 15, 2020.

He was remanded for 18 months and 12 days till June 27, after which he was released on bail.

Offenders may be released on remission after serving two-thirds of their sentence.

Ahmad is expected to be released almost immediately as his period of remand exceeds two-thirds of his sentence.

In the early morning of June 30, 2007, Ahmad, who was then a 22-year-old graphic designer, Mr Ragil, then 18, and Ms Teo, then 19, had gone to a unit in Marine Terrace where Mr Ragil was living, after a party at Lasalle College of the Arts, where all three had studied.

Ahmad claimed that the three of them consumed Ecstasy inside the unit and that Felicia died due to unknown circumstances some time before 6am.

Ahmad and Mr Ragil placed her body on a mattress and covered it with another mattress before cleaning up the unit.

They then took her mobile phone to East Coast Park and left it there. The phone was never recovered.

In the evening of that day, they put her body into a carton box and took a taxi to Punggol Track 24, where they dug a hole in the ground and placed the box within it. They poured kerosene on it and set it aflame.

After the fire died down, they covered the hole and left.

Ms Teo's mother made a police report on July 3, 2007, and Ahmad and Mr Ragil were questioned.

But during questioning on July 11 and 25 that year, Ahmad lied that he did not know where Ms Teo was.

The case was then classified by the police as a missing persons case.

The court heard that a partial human skull was found at Punggol Track 24 during excavation works in June 2010, but the identity of the person was unknown at the time.

After Ahmad's arrest in December 2020, DNA analysis established that the skull likely belonged to Ms Teo.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Yang Ziliang told the court that Ahmad and Mr Ragil's lies had led to significant wastage of public resources and kept Ms Teo's family in the dark for more than 13 years.

Ahmad's lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan, said in mitigation that at that time, Ahmad was a younger man who lied to the police because he was fearful of being prosecuted for drug offences.

Ahmad was initially accused of killing Ms Teo before being given a discharge not amounting to an acquittal for the murder charge in June this year.

Mr Nathan added that Ahmad was extremely cooperative with the police during the most recent investigations and was remorseful.

But DPP Yang said that it appeared he was only sorry he was caught.

The judge said that Ahmad's act had resulted in perversion of justice for over 13 years, and that the 26-month sentence was proportionate and would send a deterrent signal.