SINGAPORE - A 23-year-old man linked to the 2019 Orchard Towers murder was convicted in court on Friday (Feb 5).

Tan Hong Sheng was one of seven people initially charged with Mr Satheesh Noel Gobidass' murder on July 2 that year.

He is the sixth person to be dealt with in the district court.

The last person, Tan Sen Yang, 29, still faces a murder charge and will be dealt with in the High Court. The other six had had their murder charges reduced to less serious ones such as assault.

On Friday, Tan Hong Sheng pleaded guilty to being in the company of Tan Sen Yang, who had a kerambit knife in his possession at Orchard Towers on the day Mr Satheesh, 31, was killed. The weapon had a curved blade resembling a claw.

Tan Hong Sheng's lawyers stressed that their client did not participate in the attack and had tried to stop it.

He also admitted to two unrelated rioting charges on Friday.

He will be sentenced on March 5.

The court heard that his group was at the Naughty Girl Club on the second floor of Orchard Towers when a dispute later broke out at the entrance.

Tan Hong Sheng was walking out of Orchard Towers when Mr Satheesh confronted a member of his group.

Deputy Public Prosecutors Ang Feng Qian, Dora Tay and Benedict Teong stated in court documents: "During this time, the accused had noticed that (Tan Sen Yang) had the kerambit knife in his right hand when he went towards Satheesh and started punching him with the said knife in his right hand.

"During this assault, (Tan Sen Yang) injured Satheesh fatally when he used the kerambit knife to inflict multiple injures to Satheesh's head and neck area."

Tan Hong Sheng did not attack Mr Satheesh and pulled Tan Sen Yang away to stop the fight before leaving.

Mr Satheesh later collapsed and was pronounced dead at Tan Tock Seng Hospital at around 7.30am that day.

On Friday, the prosecutors urged the court to sentence Tan Hong Sheng to at least five years' jail and 12 strokes of the cane, stressing that he had committed earlier acts of rioting.

The court heard that he was on bail for one of them when he went to Orchard Towers on the day Mr Satheesh was killed.

Citing the earlier case on Nov 18, 2018, the DPPs stated that Tan Hong Sheng was at Club V5 Thai disco at Ming Arcade in Cuscaden Road when a fight broke out between his friends and another group.

Tan Hong Sheng picked up a liquor bottle and used it to repeatedly strike a man's head before fleeing to Johor Baru. He later returned to Singapore and police arrested him on Feb 25, 2019. He was then released pending further investigations.

Despite this, he reoffended about two months later and committed a second act of rioting, this time outside another nightspot called District 9 in Orchard Road.

The DPPs said that during the scuffle, he used a pair of ice tongs to repeatedly hit a man's face. Tan Hong Sheng and his group were arrested, and he was later released on bail.

Tan Hong Sheng is represented by lawyers Josephus Tan and Cory Wong from Invictus Law Corporation. They pleaded for their client to be given a lighter sentence and said that he did not assault anyone at Orchard Towers on July 2, 2019.

"Instead, he had, on multiple instances, pulled Tan Sen Yang away to de-escalate the situation," said the lawyers.

Four of the offenders linked to the Orchard Towers tragedy had been sentenced to jail earlier following their convictions. They are: Natalie Siow Yu Zhen, 24, Joel Tan Yun Sheng, Ang Da Yuan, and Loo Boon Chong. All three men are 27 years old.

Mr Chan Jia Xing, also 27, was given a conditional warning for consorting with a person carrying an offensive weapon in a public place.

For rioting with a deadly weapon, an offender can be jailed for up to 10 years and caned.