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Capital drug offender avoids gallows following retrial; jailed for 12 years
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The Court of Appeal ordered a retrial as the accused, S.K. Murugan Subrawmaniam, had previously chosen to remain silent but changed his mind after all the evidence was taken at the end of the High Court trial.
PHOTO: ST FILE
SINGAPORE - A convicted capital drug offender who avoided the death sentence when the appeal court ordered a retrial in 2019 was spared the prospect of facing the gallows once again when prosecutors amended the capital charge in the course of the second trial.
The change came after prosecutors and defence counsel battled over the admissibility of statements he had made to the police during investigations in a "trial within a trial" that stretched over some 37 days - one of the longest on record.
