He stabbed 2 brothers - then bribed them to avoid punishment

SINGAPORE - In a bid to get off the hook, an assailant who stabbed three people gave a $10,000 bribe to one victim so that the man and his brother would give false evidence.

According to court documents, Muraleindren Thoondy assaulted three people - an unnamed man and siblings Santhiran Mayalagu and Surash Mayalagu - in 2012.

He gave Santhiran the bribe in August 2015.

Muraleindren, 53, was on Tuesday (July 26) sentenced to six months' jail after he pleaded guilty to one count of graft.

Another man, Sinevigneshwaraneckman Many, 41, was sentenced to four months' jail in February this year for abetting him in the charge.

Santhiran and Surash were dealt with in court in 2020 and were each sentenced to eight months' jail.

Muraleindren stabbed the three victims outside a Liang Court club near River Valley Road on Dec 8, 2012.

He later claimed trial and the two brothers identified him as their assailant.

In December 2014, Muraleindren was found guilty and he was sentenced to 42 months' jail with 12 strokes of the cane in May 2015.

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He decided to appeal against his conviction and sentence.

Some time in mid-2015, he told Sinevigneshwaraneckman, who was then his fitness trainer, about the stabbing incident and his appeal.

The other man said Santhiran and Surash were his distant relatives. Muraleindren then hatched a plan to bribe the siblings into giving false evidence to aid his appeal.

Around August 2015, he asked his trainer if the latter could ask the brothers to sign statutory declarations to say they had mistakenly identified him as their assailant.

Muraleindren also said that he would give the siblings a reward of $10,000 if they signed the documents.

The fitness trainer agreed to help him and contacted Santhiran, who accepted the offer and said he would convince his brother to do likewise.

They met at a Toa Payoh coffee shop on Aug 22, 2015. Surash did not attend the meeting as he was unavailable then.

Muraleindren showed Santhiran a copy of a statutory declaration and the latter agreed to sign it. The trio were on their way to a nearby lawyer's office when Santhiran received the $10,000 bribe.

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Santhiran later signed the document and handed it to Muraleindren who provided him another copy of a statutory declaration for Surash to sign. Surash did so at the lawyer's office a week later.

But on Aug 12, 2016, the two brothers each filed an affidavit, stating that the contents of their statutory declarations were false.

Court documents did not disclose what spurred them to file such affidavits.

The following month, the High Court dismissed Muraleindren's appeal against his conviction and sentence.

He was offered bail of $10,000 on Tuesday and ordered to surrender himself at the State Courts on Aug 3 to begin serving his sentence over the bribery charge.

It was not stated if he had served his sentence over the 2012 assault.

This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.