Friday, December 13, 2013

THE DEVIL WITH A SMILE: ANTHONY LER (EXECUTED BY HANGING IN SINGAPORE ON 13 DECEMBER 2002)



            On this date, 13 December 2002, Anthony Ler who hired a boy to murder his wife was executed by hanging in Changi Prison, Singapore. 


Anthony Ler Wee Teang (centre) being led out of the courthouse at around 4:30 pm on 20 November 2001. (PHOTO SOURCE: http://news.asiaone.com/news/crime/devil-smile?page=0%2C0)


Devil with a smile
Saturday, Oct 05, 2013

When he tripped over his own ankle cuffs or first took the stand to give evidence, he smiled. When faced with press photographers and eager crowds who queued up at the High Court hoping to catch a glimpse of him, he smiled.

Embroiled in one of the most sensational murder cases that gripped Singapore and attracted wide publicity, he gained overnight infamy and seemed to relish in his newfound notoriety.

His smile was his trademark, a secret weapon, one that hid the 35-year-old graphic designer's devious intentions and was used to charm people in his life into doing his bidding.
But eventually, Lady Luck stopped smiling at Anthony Ler.

In April 2001, Ler approached four youths and dangled a reward of $100,000 to kill Madam Annie Leong, a 30-year-old insurance agent. The couple were in the midst of divorce proceedings. Only the youngest boy, a 15-year-old whom Ler had known for five years, took up the offer.

A master manipulator who orchestrated the plot with calm precision, Ler played on the teen's emotions to do his dirty work. He coached his juvenile accomplice on how to execute the hit cleanly, taunted and belittled him when he tried to back out, and finally forced him to go through with it by threatening to kill him. When Madam Leong sepaseparated from Ler in 1999, he was deep in debt after failed business ventures and had been out of a job for two months.

He had also lost his meagre savings on horse-racing bets.

He stood to gain sole possession of their $480,000 Pasir Ris matrimonial flat and custody of their four-year-old daughter from her death.


Pretext
On May 14, 2001, Ler lured Madam Leong out of her parents' Hougang flat where she lived with their daughter on the pretext of signing documents concerning the sale of their home.

The waiting boy ambushed her outside the lift and fatally stabbed her with a knife Ler had given him.

Throughout the trial, Ler refused to confess to the murder.

He claimed he spoke of the killing to the boy as a joke and a "game of bluff" and accused the latter of framing him.

But in passing the guilty verdict, Judicial Commissioner Tay Yong Kwang said: "Killing his wife was not something foreign to Anthony Ler's mind. He was the one constantly bringing up the morbid topic to various persons on diverse occasions. Nobody planted the idea in his mind. He was the one and only author of his constant refrain...

"It was a serious death match on the chess board of reality where the young men were to be his pawns and he, as 'king', would direct the demise of his 'queen'."

To this, Ler cracked a sad smile, but a smile nevertheless.

Ler was hanged in December 2002. The boy was spared the death penalty because he was underage and is being detained in jail indefinitely at the President's pleasure.

The New Paper was the only media Ler had opened up to, days before his arrest at Madam Leong's wake.

Ever the showman, he played the part of a mournful husband, shedding well-rehearsed crocodile tears for the cameras and expressing shock over the tragic loss of his wife.

Ironically, it was the torn front page of the April 23, 2001 copy of TNP - found near the crime scene - that helped seal Ler's fate.

It was allegedly used to wrap the murder weapon, and came from a copy of the same newspaper at Ler's home with the front page missing.

Smile

Ler's lawyer, Mr Subhas Anandan, described him as one of the most composed clients he's had to defend in his almost 40-plus-year career.

Mr Anandan wrote in his 2008 memoir The Best I Could: "That smile could be a sneer, it could be a smile of confidence, or it could be one that belies some deep fear.

"For some reason, I have never related his smile to one of happiness.

Somehow I felt it was his security blanket."

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