Jealous that his 27-year-old mistress was dating another man, businessman Lim Hong Liang cooked up a plot to attack him.
While Lim, 55, was overseas, he ordered two men to beat up Joshua Koh Kian Yong on April 8, 2016, when the latter was “chilling” with Audrey Chen at her home.
Worried for his safety, Koh, 34, went on the run with Chen. But three weeks later, three attackers caught him while he and Chen were having supper at Little India and slashed his face with a penknife.
Today, Lim and mover Ong Hock Chye, 48, were found guilty in the State Courts of conspiring to cause grievous hurt to Koh with a stabbing or cutting instrument.
District Judge Chay Yuen Fatt agreed with the prosecution’s case that Lim was the mastermind who paid the hitmen to slash Koh’s face, while Ong had suggested the slashing, recruited and instructed the hitmen on what to do, and paid them with money from Lim.
During the trial, which began in May last year, Lim denied that he had had anything to do with the attacks.
Ong, who was unrepresented by a lawyer, admitted to being a member of the conspiracy but denied suggesting the slashing or knowing Lim.
Lim and Ong will return to court on May 17 for mitigation and sentencing. They both remain out on S$10,000 (RM30,092) and S$20,000 bail respectively.
They face life imprisonment, or 15 years’ jail and/or caning. Lim cannot be caned as he is above 50 years old.
So far, five people have been dealt with in court for their involvement in the attacks.
They are Nur Atika Fauziana Sherhan, 20; Lim’s nephew Ron Lim De Mai, 26; Nur Muhammad Irwan Mohd Ngat, 29; Juhari Ab Karim, 34; and former technician Mohammad Amin Aman, 47, all of whom helped to carry out the attacks on Koh.
The first assault
Lim and Chen got into an intimate relationship at the end of 2014. Lim, who owns freight forwarding company SNL Logistics, was married at the time with three children.
Lim supported her financially from then until May 2017. He allowed her to use his credit cards, gave her cash and luxury gifts, and paid for all her household and living expenses.
Chen was a beauty queen who won the inaugural Miss Mermaid pageant in September 2016.
He also kept her on his company’s employment records as an administrative executive and paid her a monthly S$2,000 salary, but she was not required to report for work.
He bought her a white Mercedes-Benz with a licence plate that displayed her birth year, 1991.
However, he had the car fitted with a Global Positioning System (GPS) tracking device without her knowledge, to keep tabs on her.
In Jan 2016, she moved into his apartment at The Parc Condominium near West Coast Road with a domestic worker and a dog.
About three months later, in April, she started a relationship with Koh.
Sometime that same month, Koh, a part-time waiter, went to see Chen at the apartment while Lim was overseas in China for a kidney transplant.
During the visit, Lim’s son and nephew, Ron Lim, entered the apartment and began assaulting Koh.
Ron Lim kicked Koh in the stomach and punched him in the face for about 10 to 15 minutes, beginning in the bedroom and ending up in the living room.
Koh recounted that Ron Lim told him he had been “sent here by someone to kill you.”
Later that night, Lim sent Chen three voice messages which led her to believe he was behind the attack.
In one of them, he said in Mandarin: “You bring a man back to sleep when I go overseas. What you did, was it right or wrong? I provided you and everything.”
The second attack
After that incident, Koh and Chen began staying at different places, including various hotel rooms and their car.
But on the night of April 30, 2016, Irwan, Atika and Amin tracked the car – the same one that had been fitted with a GPS tracker – to a restaurant at Townshend Road near Little India, where the pair were having supper.
After the couple arrived at the eating spot, a man came up to Koh at the table and punched him on the left side of his head.
Koh stumbled and started to run, but another man grabbed him and he felt a sharp pain at the bottom of his right arm. Irwan then slashed his face with a penknife.
Chen called the police afterwards.
Koh suffered a stab wound as well as a flesh wound extending from his left upper lip to the right side of his chin. — TODAY