Indian-origin man convicted in Singapore for fatally hitting fellow traveller

Singapore, Oct 29: A court in Singapore has convicted a 33-year-old Indian-origin man for hitting another man to death following an altercation while they were travelling in a taxi in July, 2020.

Sakthivel Sivasurian was convicted on Friday of one charge of voluntarily causing hurt to Manjunatha Louis Ravi, who fell and died in hospital five days later from neck and head injuries, The Straits Times newspaper reported.

According to court documents, Manjunatha, a woman, Sakthivel and Sakthivel's wife were in a taxi on the way to Gangsa Road at around 11 p.m. when a dispute arose between the attacker and the victim.

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

He was taken to a hospital where a scan revealed bleeding on the surface of his brain, along with brain swelling and a suggestion of brain damage.

An autopsy showed that Manjunatha had a small crack in the bone above his left eye, and a displacement in his spine, The Times reported.

In a trial that lasted 16 days, the defence told the court that the initial injury Manjunatha had from the fall was not fatal. Instead, it was when Sakthivel tried to pick him up and dropped him that the initial injury was aggravated and resulted in his death.

Sakthivel claimed that after Manjunatha was hit, he took several steps backwards while still facing Sakthivel before stepping on uneven ground and falling.

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

But he expressed reasonable doubt whether Manjunatha would have died from the initial injury from the fall had he not been "dropped and manhandled".

"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 attempted to lift or move him," Judge Lee was quoted as saying in The Straits Times.

"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."

Sakthivel also submitted a Google Street View image from October 2019 to support his position that there was already a hole on the ground where the incident occurred.

The judge said none of the eyewitnesses had seen the victim losing his footing after stepping on uneven ground.

In addition, he said that based on the manner in which Manjunatha took his steps, as seen in video footage, and the extremely short time between when he was hit and when he fell, it was clear that he had fallen to the ground as a result of having been hit.

"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 said. Sakthivel will return to court in November for sentencing.