“The United States has offered FBI assistance to the Government of Singapore on the Shane Todd case" (but Singaporean authorities have not accepted the assistance) - what is the jurisdiction for the FBI to pursue this investigation without Singaporean consent? Doing that sounds like an appropriate measure at this stage (a little surprised that it hasn't already happened).
Death in Singapore
131–140 of 248 posts
Re: Death in Singapore
#132Not the first death of that kind in Singapore: "Family suspects interference in David Widjaja case" http://sgforums.com/forums/3317/topics/363855 "However, it appeared the court process was intentionally directed to a conclusion of suicide despite evidence showing a strong possibility of murder, according to David's family and the verification team. "We have strong evidence that he was murdered but that fact was not…
Is hitting someone by car really a plausible method? Do they just drive round the block over and over until they see the guy?
Definitely plausible. They know that he crosses the road at certain times. So they park a car nearby. As he's approaching the road, the car driver is notified and tries to hit him.
Or - they can simply kill him in other way and report that he was hit by car.
Re: Death in Singapore
#133> The Todds agree that Shane’s hard drive may be a critical piece of evidence in how he died and could shed fresh light on the vulnerabilities of technology safeguards. But they question how the Singapore police have so far investigated Shane’s death, so they won’t hand over the drive. They are offering, instead, to send a copy of the contents of the drive. Good. This is pretty much the only sane way to handle digita…
It's possible the hitmen could have cloned the drive, bought a replica, mirrored the contents and deleted any incriminating evidence, the parents are probably not advanced enough to know the difference between a file and a browser.
I'd look for evidence that the hard drive shows evidence of usage by the victim here.
Re: Death in Singapore
#134Families of the suicidal always blame everyone else.
These sorts of cases - in which families accuse the police of complicity or incompetence during suicide investigations - are not exactly unknown.
I recall reading accounts of a similarly "suspicious suicide" several years ago. It also included sympathetic interviews with a grieving family in denial. Read for yourself how that turned out:
Initial suspicion report, 2007: http://www.sfweekly.com/2007-07-18/news/who-killed-hugues-de...
Example of another suspicion report: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18559_162-6599236.html?pageNum=1
Whelp, "independent" (kinda) investigation says probably a suicide (2009): http://abclocal.go.com/kgo/story?section=news/local/san_fran...
Some continue to push the murder theory (there are many more recent news articles too): http://huguesdelaplaza.blogspot.com/
The fact is, no one really knows. Once you hear the other side of the story, things get more convoluted. It seems that the police have a decent reason to classify it as a suicide, but it also seems that the case may have been a murder. So it's weird.
These sorts of cases seem to pop up from time to time. Most likely some are murders, and most likely some are suicides. I'm not confident in my own ability to determine which is which by simply reading a highly biased account in a newspaper.
Re: Death in Singapore
#135“The United States has offered FBI assistance to the Government of Singapore on the Shane Todd case" (but Singaporean authorities have not accepted the assistance) - what is the jurisdiction for the FBI to pursue this investigation without Singaporean consent? Doing that sounds like an appropriate measure at this stage (a little surprised that it hasn't already happened).
They have obviously no jurisdiction but they might have access experience, money, human resources, technology and information Singaporian authorities might not necessarily have access to. This kind of cooperation is fairly common in cases involving multiple countries, but obviously they can only conduct an investigation in Singapore with the consent of the Singaporean government. They are free to conduct an investigation within the United States, however.
Re: Death in Singapore
#136Earlier quoted context omitted.
You are exhibiting some insane cognitive dissonance there. Your post is internally inconsistent. Singapore is Disneyland with a death penalty.
It's hard to understand, isn't it? However, I feel the same about where I live... Fiji. We're run by a dictator at present, but you wouldn't know it unless you got involved in anti-government "activities".
In communist Poland it was basically the same... The ruling cronies didn't care about you as long as you didn't threaten their power.
Re: Death in Singapore
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's only free from corruption on the indices because financial crime is legalized (the victims are overseas in places like Burma, where their clients extract ill-gotten gains to launder in the Singapore markets) and the government, which came to power on a platform of communism and claims to be a democracy, is in fact a well established, dynastically-held totalitarian state with hopelessly enslaved (believe they are…
That would explain why the same party has won every single election since independence.
And it explains the large overlap among executives of large companies, military brass, and government ministers. They are all the same people: literally a guy is a CEO, because he is also a general and last year he was Minister for Whatever.
I still laugh about the interview I saw with Lee Hsien Loong in which the obsequious (although perhaps rather clever) interviewer asked him whether he had been upset when Goh Chok Tong had immediately succeeded Lee Kwan Yew (Hsien Loong's father) as PM. LHL squirmed and laughed nervously, and stammered, "Well, ah, of course not. One cannot have unreasonable expectations." Even he was embarrassed for his country then.
Re: Death in Singapore
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
What does corruption have anything to do with this? I would think it's largely irrelevant. And also, you're right, those people do work in the defense industry.
Working in any industry in Pakistan or Nigeria (both #139 on the Corruptions Perceptions Index) is probably going to be more life-threatening than working for the Danish, Finnish, or Kiwi (tied for #1) defence establishments.
Being higher in the corruption perceptions index really means people in that country are consistently better at hiding it, so outsiders perceive it less.
Re: Death in Singapore
#139“The United States has offered FBI assistance to the Government of Singapore on the Shane Todd case" (but Singaporean authorities have not accepted the assistance) - what is the jurisdiction for the FBI to pursue this investigation without Singaporean consent? Doing that sounds like an appropriate measure at this stage (a little surprised that it hasn't already happened).
They have obviously no jurisdiction but they might have access experience, money, human resources, technology and information Singaporian authorities might not necessarily have access to. This kind of cooperation is fairly common in cases involving multiple countries, but obviously they can only conduct an investigation in Singapore with the consent of the Singaporean government. They are free to conduct an investiga…
But what exactly would stop the FBI from sending agents to Singapore and conducting their own investigation, with or without consent? Need it be covert, it could certainly be covert.
I'm currently operating under the assumption (which seemed likely to me) that the Singaporean government / police had a motive for not wanting to involve the FBI. Hence the more reason for the FBI to be there.
Re: Death in Singapore
#140Earlier quoted context omitted.
Really, then what exactly would you call it? You are essentially subject to all manner of ridiculous punishment for what would be considered minor or non-offenses in most free countries. Most of their elections are uncontested. You can dress it up because their streets are clean and safe, but it's still facism.
I'd describe Singapore strict laws just as effective and strict but in exchange you get a very safe and clean country, no drugs, no garbage, no theft. That's ok with me if (and only if) those laws are not exploited by the government. i don't think this is really the case in Singapore, at least not more then in the U.S. or european countries. Compared to the surrounding countries Singapore is like _the_ safe place and…
You only need draconian laws like that to enforce the things you mentioned if the local population is naturally so uncivilized that they need to be intimated and/or treated like cattle in order to behave. I'm not saying that's what the Singaporeans are like, but it sure seems like their government thinks that's the case.
Seriously, if you need some crazy draconian law to make sure people aren't littering everywhere, then something is very wrong with your people's culture and level of civilization.
In Japan there aren't any laws like that, yet it's safe to say that it is the most civilized country on the planet. It's extremely safe, criminal violence is virtually unheard of, levels of cleanliness are superb and the people are generally very polite and pleasant in everyday situations.
It's a living proof that you don't need to intimidate people if their morals and sense of responsibility are in check and they know not to do "bad things" because they're wrong and harmful to the society, and not because they will get caned otherwise.