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Subhas Anandan: Prominent cases the leading Singapore criminal lawyer took on
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Criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan had taken on more than 2,500 cases and earned a reputation for defending notorious criminals, many a time pro bono. -- PHOTO: ST FILE
SINGAPORE - Criminal lawyer Subhas Anandan, 67, died in Singapore General Hospital on Wednesday morning. He was called to the Bar in 1971 after graduating from the then University of Singapore. He had taken on more than 2,500 cases and earned a reputation for defending notorious criminals, many a time pro bono.
Subhas, who was also president of the Association of Criminal Lawyers in Singapore, once said in an interview: "However heinous your offence is, I think you deserve a proper defence, especially in capital cases... Why should anybody say that he is guilty when the court has not found him guilty yet?"
Here are some big cases he took on in recent years.
He went to his death the way he lived his life. Unrepentant.
Not once did Anthony Ler, 35, who talked a 15-year-old boy into murdering his wife, Annie Leong, 30, waver as he took the 40m walk to the hangman's noose.
The trapdoor was dropped at 6am yesterday. Read more here
More about the case:
The 52-year-old married man found guilty of the Kallang body parts murder of 2005 has failed in his final court bid to be spared the hangman's noose.
Former factory supervisor Leong Siew Chor, convicted by the High Court in May last year of killing his Chinese national lover Liu Hong Mei, 22, was not in court yesterday, when his lawyer failed to get a new panel of appeal judges on the case.
Mr Subhas Anandan argued that the minds of the three judges who heard and threw out Leong's appeal last September had been "influenced" by apparently incriminating statements they should not have seen. Read more here
More about the case:
Convicted child killer Took Leng How, 24, has failed in his final bid to be spared the hangman's noose: His plea for clemency has been rejected by the President.
The decision of President SR Nathan - on the advice of the Cabinet - to allow Took's death sentence to stand brings to a close a dramatic case that has gripped Singaporeans for the past two years.
Defence lawyer Subhas Anandan said he "thought there was a glimmer of hope" because of the rare split decision when the Court of Appeal dismissed Took's appeal against conviction and sentence in January. Read more here
More about the case:
Tears of relief flooded the face of Constance Chee Cheong Hin yesterday when she was sentenced to 13 years instead of life imprisonment for abducting and causing the death of a four-year-old girl.
Justice V.K. Rajah came down on the side of the defence, which had argued that she did not deserve life behind bars as she had a chance to turn around with proper supervision of her mental condition.
Produced in court were sworn statements from her three sisters, pledging to supervise her medication, financial and personal needs on her release from prison. Read more here
More about the case:
A former triad leader who gunned down a nightclub owner in 2006 has been denied clemency by the President in what was a last-ditch effort to avoid the gallows.
The decision paves the way for Tan Chor Jin, dubbed the "One-Eyed Dragon", to be executed within the next two weeks.
Tan, who is blind in one eye, applied for clemency in August last year, and was turned down last week. Read more here
More about the case:
