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Chan Seng Onn
Chan Seng Onn PJG PBS is a Singaporean judge who presently serves as a Senior Judge of the High Court of Singapore. Formerly a prosecutor, Chan had previously served as a High Court judge from 2007 to 2022.
Chan Seng Onn was born in Singapore on 4 January 1954 as the youngest of three children, with two sisters. His mother was a housewife and his father worked as a sewage pump attendant. He studied at St Anthony's Boys' School and then St Joseph's Institution (SJI) where he did his GCE O-Level and A-Level exams. He was a top student alongside future politicians Teo Chee Hean and George Yeo at SJI.
As a President's and Colombo Plan scholar, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering from University College London in 1976. He received a master's degree in industrial engineering from National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1981, and a Diploma in Business Administration from NUS. He received his Bachelor of Laws from NUS in 1986 and Master of Laws from University of Cambridge in 1987.
In 1987, he joined the Singapore Legal Service as State Counsel and Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC). He was appointed Senior Assistant Registrar to the Supreme Court in 1991. In 1994, he returned to AGC in the role of Senior State Counsel.
During his tenure as a prosecutor, one of the cases prosecuted by Chan was that of Ng Theng Shuang, one of the two Malaysian armed robbers involved in the South Bridge Road shootout after their failed goldsmith robbery attempt. Ng managed to escape to Malaysia, where he was caught a year later, while the accomplice Lee Kok Chin was killed by Cisco officer Karamjit Singh, who was shot twice in his leg by Ng. Ng was brought to trial in Singapore's High Court for illegally discharging a firearm, and Chan successfully sought a guilty verdict and death sentence for Ng due to the evidence of Ng's fingerprints at the scene of crime and testimony of witnesses who knew about Ng's involvement in the crime, which refuted Ng's claims of an alibi. Ng lost his appeal against the death sentence and he was hanged on 14 July 1995
On 15 October 1997, he was appointed Judicial Commissioner.
In August 1998, as Judicial Commissioner, Chan was the presiding judge of the trial of Too Yin Sheong, one of the three Malaysians accused of the brutal robbery-murder of Lee Kok Cheong, an associate professor of National University of Singapore, in December 1993. Too, who was arrested four years after the murder, stated he never strangled the professor and testified that it was one of the accomplices who did the killing, but Chan found that Too was a "cold-blooded" murderer who never stepped in to stop his accomplice from strangling the victim to death, and even remorselessly stole Lee's ATM card to make unauthorized withdrawals of money to spend on shopping for himself and his accomplices, and found that he acted in furtherance of the common intention of the trio to commit robbery, and in turn, to silence Lee for the sake of avoid leaving witnesses behind. Hence, Chan found Too guilty of murdering Lee, and sentenced him to death on 28 August 1998. Too was hanged on 30 April 1999 after his appeal failed. As for Too's accomplices, one of them (Ng Chek Siong) was caught in May 1998 and sentenced three months later to eight years' jail with ten strokes of the cane, while the other accomplice (Lee Chez Kee), whom Too claimed was the main offender responsible for the murder, was arrested in February 2006 and likewise executed for murder.
In April 2000, Chan heard the case of 33-year-old Vincent Lee Chuan Leong, one of the three kidnappers and mastermind of the abduction of a 14-year-old girl for ransom in September 1999. Chan, in his judgement, noted Lee have no criminal records, and during the course of the kidnapping, he did not harm the girl and treated her well save for the trauma the victim gone through, and thus he decided that the death penalty was inappropriate, and instead sentenced Lee to life imprisonment. Subsequently, the other two kidnappers Shi Song Jing and Zhou Jian Guang, who were illegal immigrants from China, were also sentenced to life in prison by another judge Tay Yong Kwang during a separate trial.
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Chan Seng Onn
Chan Seng Onn PJG PBS is a Singaporean judge who presently serves as a Senior Judge of the High Court of Singapore. Formerly a prosecutor, Chan had previously served as a High Court judge from 2007 to 2022.
Chan Seng Onn was born in Singapore on 4 January 1954 as the youngest of three children, with two sisters. His mother was a housewife and his father worked as a sewage pump attendant. He studied at St Anthony's Boys' School and then St Joseph's Institution (SJI) where he did his GCE O-Level and A-Level exams. He was a top student alongside future politicians Teo Chee Hean and George Yeo at SJI.
As a President's and Colombo Plan scholar, he graduated with a bachelor's degree in engineering from University College London in 1976. He received a master's degree in industrial engineering from National University of Singapore (NUS) in 1981, and a Diploma in Business Administration from NUS. He received his Bachelor of Laws from NUS in 1986 and Master of Laws from University of Cambridge in 1987.
In 1987, he joined the Singapore Legal Service as State Counsel and Deputy Public Prosecutor in the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC). He was appointed Senior Assistant Registrar to the Supreme Court in 1991. In 1994, he returned to AGC in the role of Senior State Counsel.
During his tenure as a prosecutor, one of the cases prosecuted by Chan was that of Ng Theng Shuang, one of the two Malaysian armed robbers involved in the South Bridge Road shootout after their failed goldsmith robbery attempt. Ng managed to escape to Malaysia, where he was caught a year later, while the accomplice Lee Kok Chin was killed by Cisco officer Karamjit Singh, who was shot twice in his leg by Ng. Ng was brought to trial in Singapore's High Court for illegally discharging a firearm, and Chan successfully sought a guilty verdict and death sentence for Ng due to the evidence of Ng's fingerprints at the scene of crime and testimony of witnesses who knew about Ng's involvement in the crime, which refuted Ng's claims of an alibi. Ng lost his appeal against the death sentence and he was hanged on 14 July 1995
On 15 October 1997, he was appointed Judicial Commissioner.
In August 1998, as Judicial Commissioner, Chan was the presiding judge of the trial of Too Yin Sheong, one of the three Malaysians accused of the brutal robbery-murder of Lee Kok Cheong, an associate professor of National University of Singapore, in December 1993. Too, who was arrested four years after the murder, stated he never strangled the professor and testified that it was one of the accomplices who did the killing, but Chan found that Too was a "cold-blooded" murderer who never stepped in to stop his accomplice from strangling the victim to death, and even remorselessly stole Lee's ATM card to make unauthorized withdrawals of money to spend on shopping for himself and his accomplices, and found that he acted in furtherance of the common intention of the trio to commit robbery, and in turn, to silence Lee for the sake of avoid leaving witnesses behind. Hence, Chan found Too guilty of murdering Lee, and sentenced him to death on 28 August 1998. Too was hanged on 30 April 1999 after his appeal failed. As for Too's accomplices, one of them (Ng Chek Siong) was caught in May 1998 and sentenced three months later to eight years' jail with ten strokes of the cane, while the other accomplice (Lee Chez Kee), whom Too claimed was the main offender responsible for the murder, was arrested in February 2006 and likewise executed for murder.
In April 2000, Chan heard the case of 33-year-old Vincent Lee Chuan Leong, one of the three kidnappers and mastermind of the abduction of a 14-year-old girl for ransom in September 1999. Chan, in his judgement, noted Lee have no criminal records, and during the course of the kidnapping, he did not harm the girl and treated her well save for the trauma the victim gone through, and thus he decided that the death penalty was inappropriate, and instead sentenced Lee to life imprisonment. Subsequently, the other two kidnappers Shi Song Jing and Zhou Jian Guang, who were illegal immigrants from China, were also sentenced to life in prison by another judge Tay Yong Kwang during a separate trial.