CNB officer convicted of voluntarily causing hurt to get confession
An officer from the Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB) has been convicted of three counts of voluntarily causing hurt to extort a confession from a drug offender in January 2017.
On Friday (March 18), District Judge Salina Ishak found Vengedesh Raj Nainar Nagarajan, now 35, guilty of the offences following a trial.
The judge said the accused was "evasive" when he gave his testimony in court earlier.
The Singaporean, who has been suspended since October 2019, had committed the offences against Sivabalan Kanniappan after the latter was found with drugs on him at Woodlands Checkpoint.
The Malaysian, then 34, has since been convicted of drug offences and given 15 years' jail with 13 strokes of the cane.
During the trial, Deputy Public Prosecutor Han Ming Kuang said Vengedesh, then a corporal with the CNB, was called in for additional support at about 5am on Jan 2, 2017.
The court heard that he took Sivabalan to a toilet at Woodlands Checkpoint to extort a confession and assaulted the Malaysian man.
Vengedesh is represented by lawyer Peter Fernando.
His mitigation and sentencing are expected to take place on April 29.
In an earlier statement, the bureau said: "(CNB) does not condone any misconduct by our officers, and takes a serious view of all complaints against our officers."
Following his conviction on Friday, Vengedesh still has three other pending charges for offences including harassment.
For each count of voluntarily causing hurt to extort a confession, an offender can be jailed for up to seven years and fined or caned.
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