Indian-origin man convicted of injuring compatriot who died in Singapore hospital

PTI

Singapore, October 28

An Indian-origin man has been convicted of voluntarily causing hurt to a compatriot who died in hospital five days later from neck and head injuries.

Sakthivel Sivasurian, 33, also pleaded guilty to a charge of giving false information to a public servant while out on bail.

Sakthivel will return to court in November for sentencing, The Straits Times reported.

After they alighted from a taxi, Sakthivel and Manjunatha Louis Ravi got into an altercation. Sakthivel punched Manjunatha who fell down.

The relationship between the two men was not mentioned in court documents. The nationalities of the two were also not stated in the media report.

The defence's position at the 16-day trial was that the initial injury sustained by Manjunatha from the fall was not fatal. Instead, it was when Sakthivel tried to pick him up and drop him that aggravated the initial injury and resulted in his death.

According to court documents, District Judge James Elisha Lee said he accepted the evidence from Sakthivel's lawyer Vaswani Sanjiv that Manjunatha had been dropped twice when Sakthivel and a woman were trying to lift him up after he had fallen to the ground.

The judge said he accepted the evidence that Sakthivel had moved Manjunatha to a grass patch before an ambulance arrived.

The judge added that there was reasonable doubt whether Manjunatha would have died from the initial injury sustained from the fall had he not been “dropped and manhandled”.

But the judge added, “While the dropping and manhandling of the victim after the fall may have aggravated his initial injury, the situation had arisen purely as a result of the fall. If not for the fall, and the victim's inability to get up on his own thereafter, the two of them would not have tried to lift or move him.

“In fact, if not for the injury sustained by the victim from the fall, the dropping and manhandling of the victim per se would not have resulted in his death.”

According to court documents, Manjunatha, a woman, Sakthivel and Sakthivel's wife were in a taxi at around 11 pm on July 18, 2020.

A dispute arose between Sakthivel and Manjunatha that eventually led to an altercation between them after they had alighted from the taxi.

During the altercation, Manjunatha fell and hit his head on the ground and was unable to get up on his own thereafter.

A scan at the hospital revealed bleeding on the surface of his brain, along with swelling and damage. His prognosis was poor after consultations with neurosurgeons.

The victim was supportively managed in the Intensive Care Unit until his father was able to visit him on July 23, 2020. He was disconnected from the mechanical ventilator and died the same day.

An autopsy showed that Manjunatha suffered a small crack in the bone above the left eye and there was a displacement in his spine.

As part of his defence, Sakthivel claimed that after getting hit, Manjunatha, took several steps backwards while still facing Sakthivel before stepping on uneven ground and falling.

“Even if the victim had fallen after stepping into the hole, it would still have been attributable to the hit by the accused,” the judge added. 

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