On 12 February 1991, a 78-year-old housewife Sukarti binti Amari was found murdered inside her Telok Blangah flat by her nephew and husband. Her eight rings, gold chains and other jewellery worth S$5,000 were missing from the flat. Two suspects were arrested at least three months later for Sukarti's murder. It was established that both the killers had planned to enter Sukarti's flat to commit robbery, and they devised using chilli powder to blind the deceased before restraining her and strangling her.
Although the two defendants - 34-year-old Yacob s/o Rusmatullah and 29-year-old Mohamed Jaafar bin Abidin (who were both Singaporeans) - argued that there was no intention to strangle Sukarti other than to rob, the High Court found that both Yacob and Jaafar had intentionally strangled the victim with the view to cause her death by asyphxia and therefore, both men were found guilty of the murder, and sentenced to death on 13 April 1993. The Sukarti murderers were both hanged on 26 August 1994 after their appeals against the death sentence failed.
Murder
On the evening of 12 February 1991, at Singapore's Telok Blangah, a 65-year-old cleaner returned home only to find that his front door was locked. Unable to open the door, the cleaner went to one of the nearby blocks, where his nephew lived, so as to seek the nephew's help to open the door. The 48-year-old nephew used a hammer to force open the door (which took three hours or so), and upon entering the flat, both the nephew and his uncle were shocked to see the lifeless body of his aunt lying near to the front door.
The victim was identified as 78-year-old Sukarti binti Amari, a housewife who was nicknamed "Walking jewellery shop" by her neighbours due to her possession of a large amount of valuables and herself wearing the jewellery whenever going outside. Sukarti was speculated to have known her assailant(s), because there were no signs of forced entry into the flat and based on the traces of chilli powder discovered on the victim's face, it was theorized that Sukarti must have opened the door to allow the assailant(s) to enter her house before getting blinded by chilli powder, and later strangled to death. The possible motive for the murder was robbery, since eight rings, two gold chains, two gold bracelets and a pair of gold earrings worth S$5,000 were missing from the flat.
Three months later, on 4 May 1991, The police managed to identify a suspect and arrested him for killing Sukarti. Soon after the first suspect's arrest, his alleged accomplice was found to be detained at a drug rehabilitation centre at Sembawang. Subsequently, the second suspect was also taken into police custody for killing 78-year-old Sukarti Amari. The first suspect, an 34-year-old odd-job worker Yacob Rusmatullah, was charged with murder on 6 May 1991, while the second suspect, 29-year-old Mohamed Jaafar Abidin (unemployed), was charged on 7 May the next day for murder. Under the Penal Code of Singapore, offenders found guilty of murder would be sentenced to death.
Background
Sukarti binti Amari, an Indonesian-born Singaporean, was born in 1913. She married her Indonesian-born husband Karnawi bin Kaliman (who was 13 years younger than her) sometime in the 1950s when he immigrated from Indonesia to Singapore. Prior to his marriage with Sukarti, Karnawi was previously married to an unknown woman back in Indonesia during the 1940s. Sukarti and her husband had no children, but they had a nephew who lived near them in Telok Blangah, Singapore. Sukarti was a housewife while her husband worked as a cleaner. It was reported that eight months after the death of his wife, Karnawi married for the third time with an Indonesian woman and moved on with his life, but he still missed Sukarti.
According to sources, one of the suspects Mohamed Jaafar Abidin, who was the eldest of seven children in the family, was constantly in and out of drug rehabilitation centres for drug consumption. Jaafar's parents divorced when he was young, and they were remarried at the time their eldest son was charged with murder. Jaafar, who shared a flat with two of his brothers, was unemployed and unable to find a stable job as a result of his addiction and stints at the drug rehabilitation centre, and had to depend on the allowance provided by his siblings and relatives.