A 29-year-old Indian-origin repeat offender, who handed his alleged accomplice a harpoon that was later used to stab a man, was today sentenced to nearly 22 months in jail and ordered to receive 12 cane strokes by a court in Singapore.
S. Mageshwaran, who also committed some other offences when he was under a remission order between September 3, 2020, and October 1, 2021 – a period during which he was supposed to be out of trouble – earlier pleaded guilty to multiple crimes including harassment, having the harpoon, and traffic offences.
He was sentenced to 17 months, 19 weeks, and three days in jail for the possession of the weapon, The Straits Times newspaper reported.
He will spend five more days behind bars in addition to the original sentencing.
For driving carelessly, Mageshwaran was disqualified from holding or obtaining all classes of driving licences for four months from his date of release.
The prosecution said that he was out on bail when he handed the harpoon to Sheran Raj Balasubramaniam, 23, who stabbed the victim.
The victim, also 23, was found to be bleeding profusely with the 20 cm-long weapon stuck in his back following the attack in June 2022.
In earlier proceedings, Public Prosecutor Melissa Heng said Mageshwaran was convicted of having a dangerous weapon in 2019.
He was later sentenced to three years and three months in jail and was released in 2020.
Mageshwaran was under a remission order when he reoffended on November 30, 2020.
He had used vulgar language against a 33-year-old policeman in the Little India precinct while drunk. He was then arrested and released on bail.
On June 3, 2022, Mageshwaran carried the weapon to Candy Bar with Sheran Raj.
Mageshwaran had the harpoon in his possession when Sheran Raj picked him up in a taxi and he, along the way, handed it over to Sheran Raj who kept it in the left pocket of his shorts.
According to court documents, Sheran Raj later used it to stab the victim outside the Candy Bar.
DPP Heng did not disclose the reason behind the attack.
Meanwhile, Mageshwaran got into a dispute with another 22-year-old man, and they shouted at each other.
The younger man's friends intervened and his group of six other people later went to Labrador Nature Reserve to continue drinking alcohol.
Still unhappy, Mageshwaran retrieved a machete from his mother's flat before making his way to Labrador Park, a popular F&B sea-facing place.
Mageshwaran charged towards the seven men, waving the machete, after which they ran away.
The police were alerted and officers arrested Mageshwaran soon after.
In an unrelated case, he also committed traffic offences including driving a car without a licence and careless driving in Yishun in September 2021, according to the Singapore daily report.
Defence lawyer N. Divanan said Mageshwaran suffered from major depressive disorder and his failure to exercise consequential thinking during the traffic offences was due to his relationship issues.
The lawyer said his client also had no knowledge that Sheran Raj would use the harpoon to attack the 23-year-old man.
Sheran Raj's case is still pending.
