Ahmed Salim (born 1 January 1989) was a Bangladeshi painter who was charged with killing his Indonesian girlfriend Nurhidayati Wartono Surata on the evening of 30 December 2018 at a hotel in Geylang. According to Ahmed, Nurhidayati expressed her intention to break up with him due to Ahmed's arranged marriage and her finding a new boyfriend, which made Ahmed planning to kill Nurhidayati during that meeting itself should she rejected his request to break up with her new boyfriend.
Although Ahmed's defence counsel submitted medical evidence to prove that Ahmed's mental responsibility was impaired as a result of adjustment disorder during the killing, the High Court determined that Ahmed had a clear intention to commit premeditated murder and never suffered from an abnormality of the mind when killing Nurhidayati. Hence, Ahmed was found guilty of murdering Nurhidayati under Section 300(a) of the Penal Code, and sentenced to death (the mandatory sentence for intentional murder) on 14 December 2020.
As of 2023, Ahmed Salim was the latest person to be sentenced to death for murder in Singapore.
Biography
Ahmed Salim was born in Bangladesh on 1 January 1989. He was likely the only child and son of his family.
After reaching adulthood and completing his education, Ahmed migrated from Bangladesh to Singapore in 2010 to seek and gain employment. He was working as a painter as of December 2018.
Relationship with Nurhidayati
In May 2012, while working in Singapore, Ahmed Salim first met his girlfriend Nurhidayati Wartono Surata, an Indonesian citizen who came to Singapore that same year to work as a maid. Nurhidayati, who was born in 1984 and five years older than Ahmed, hailed from the Indramayu regency of West Java, where she lived with her mother Warsem and stepfather Muradi. Nurhidayati was married with one son before she divorced her husband, seven years after they married in an unknown year. As of December 2018, Nurhidayati was working for a family that resided in Serangoon, which was the third family she worked for since her arrival in Singapore in 2012.
Since they first met, Ahmed and Nurhidayati became romantically involved, and Nurhidayati's family were aware of Ahmed's relationship with Nurhidayati. In November 2017, five years after they first met, the couple agreed to get married in December 2018. Ahmed was devoted to Nurhidayati, and regarded her as his wife despite not being officially married.
In May or June 2018, the sixth year of her relationship with Ahmed, Nurhidayati first met Shamim Shamizur Rahman, a Bangladeshi who worked as a plumber in Singapore, and became attracted to him. Upon getting wind of Nurhidayati's relationship with Shamim, Ahmed confronted her and subsequently, he contacted his mother and a friend to help him find a wife. Eventually, Ahmed's mother found a potential wife for him, and the marriage was arranged to take place in February 2019.
Eventually, sometime in July or August 2018, Ahmed and Nurhidayati reconciled and resumed their relationship in spite of Nurhidayati being reminded of Ahmed's arranged marriage. However, while they resumed their routine meetings on Sundays and constantly had sex, the couple's relationship became fraught with arguments regarding Nurhidayati's continued meetings with Shamim, and at one point, during one of these quarrels, Ahmed was so enraged that he used a towel to cover Nurhidayati's mouth, before he released upon Nurhidayati's struggle; Nurhidayati later apologize to Ahmed over this.
Three months later, in October or November 2018, Nurhidayati met Hanifa Mohammad Abu, a Bangladeshi and work permit holder who worked as a fitter in Singapore. Not long after, Nurhidayati fell in love with Hanifa and became his girlfriend. Shortly after they began dating, Nurhidayati told Hanifa about Ahmed and informed him about Ahmed's arranged marriage in Bangladesh. She assured Hanifa that she would end her relationship with Ahmed; Hanifa and Nurhidayati continued dating despite all this.
On 9 December 2018, Ahmed suspected that Nurhidayati was once again seeing another man. Nurhidayati did not deny it and admitted she became Hanifa's girlfriend, and asked Ahmed to go back to Bangladesh to marry his fiancée. Although Ahmed asked Nurhidayati to meet him again on 23 December with the view of persuading her not to break up, Nurhidayati once again expressed that she wished to end her relationship with Ahmed in view of his upcoming marriage.