Acquittal of Liew Mun Leong's former maid prompts AGC to look further into case

Singapore

THE Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC) is studying whether any further action is needed following the acquittal of Parti Liyani - the Indonesian maid whom corporate bigwig Liew Mun Leong and members of his family falsely accused of stealing items from their homes.

High Court Judge Chan Seng Onn, who issued a 100-page judgment on his decision to acquit Ms Parti, said there was reason to believe the Liew family took the pre-emptive step to fire Ms Parti suddenly and without giving her sufficient time to pack, in the hope that it would deprive her of the time to make a complaint to MOM about her illegal deployment to work for Mr Liew's son Karl.

He said that when Ms Parti threatened to complain to MOM after her sudden termination, Mr Liew, who is chairman of Changi Airport Group (CAG) and Surbana Jurong and former CEO of CapitaLand, and his son tried to stop this by lodging a police report to prevent her return to Singapore. He also doubted the evidence of members of the Liew family on various issues and raised doubts about parts of the police work on the case.

Ms Parti, who worked for Mr Liew and his family for about nine years (2007 to 2016), was earlier sentenced to two years and two months' jail in March 2019 after being accused of stealing more than S$34,000 worth of items. She was cleared by the High Court following an appeal against her conviction and sentence.

Her lawyer, Anil Balchandani, who acted pro bono, had argued that she was being framed to prevent her from lodging the complaint about illegal deployment.

In October 2017, Ms Parti made a report of illegal deployment by her employer's wife Mrs Liew to the younger Mr Liew's residence between September and October 2016, and to his office around 2012 and 2013.

Following the conclusion of an investigation in May 2018, MOM issued a caution to Mrs Liew and an advisory to Mr Karl Liew, MOM said on Sunday.

It added that the caution was consistent with that taken in other similar cases.

However, in light of Justice Chan's comments on the case, MOM said in a statement on Sunday that it is in consultation with the AGC as to whether any further action ought to be taken in the case.

The police also said on Sunday that it is looking into several observations that Justice Chan had made of police investigations in the case.

Among other things, the judge found that there was a break in the chain of custody of evidence. This created reasonable doubt as to whether some of the allegedly stolen items discovered by the family were accurately documented by the photographs taken by the police.

After Ms Parti was informed that her employment was terminated, she packed items into three boxes and flew home the same day after asking the younger Mr Liew to ship the boxes to her. The next day, the family opened the boxes and found items that allegedly belonged to members of the household.

A police report was made on October 30, but the police attended to the scene about five weeks later. The Liew family was told by the police that they were free to use the items in the meantime, and they took and put items back into the boxes.

Justice Chan also found that two statements were taken from Ms Parti by the police without an interpreter. This raised reasonable doubt about the translation's accuracy. The police said they are looking into these observations made by the judge.

When contacted yesterday, CAG declined to comment on the AGC's update. Surbana Jurong said on Monday that it is unable to comment on a personal matter.