In a press release issued on Sunday, the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) said that it will study the judgment on Parti Liyani v PP to assess what further action to be taken in this case, in the light of Justice Chan Seng Onn’s comments on the case.
On Friday (4 Sep), Justice Chan allowed the appeal against conviction and acquitted Ms Parti Liyani of all four theft-related charges filed against her.
She was earlier arrested by the Police on 2 Dec 2016 and subsequently charged by AGC on 27 Aug 2017 after her former employer, Mr Liew Mun Leong, Changi Airport Group Chairman accused her to have stolen items from him and his family members on 30 Oct 2016.
Ms Parti was then convicted of the four charges in Mar 2019 and sentenced 26 months of imprisonment by District Judge Olivia Low on 25 Mar 2019.
In his judgement, Justice Chan concluded:
“In the above circumstances, I allow Parti’s appeal against all four charges against her. I first observe that in the present case, which involved a voluminous number of items, the proper handling of the evidence by the police and recording of the allegedly stolen items is crucial in order to preserve the chain of custody of the items. Coupled with the existence of an improper motive by members of the Liew family for mounting the allegations against Parti, I find that the convictions against Parti are unsafe and accordingly acquit her of all the charges.”
AGC noted that one of Justice Chan’s findings was that there was reason to believe that the Liew family took the pre-emptive step to terminate the Appellant’s employment suddenly and without giving her sufficient time to pack, in the hope that she would not use the time to make a complaint to the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) about her illegal deployment to work for Karl Liew.
Justice Chan further found that when the Appellant threatened to complain to MOM after her sudden termination, Liew Mun Leong and Karl Liew lodged the police report to prevent her return to Singapore to lodge a complaint with the MOM. He also disbelieved the evidence of several members of the Liew family on various issues.
AGC noted that his findings do raise questions which warrant further investigations.