Company director gave colleague $4,000 to bribe policeman and ICA officer
To get two men out of run-ins with the law in 2015, a director of a balloon company gave his colleague $4,000 to bribe officers from the police and Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA).
Goh Siong Kiat, now 60, was sentenced to three months’ jail on Wednesday after pleading guilty in September 2022 to two charges under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
On Oct 4, 2015, a police station inspector identified as Terence Lam Guo Long was part of a team that arrested 13 men for rioting in Clive Street in Little India, The Straits Times reported previously.
One of the men, Pua Kok Siong, sought Goh’s help to escape a jail term as he believed that Goh knew some police officers.
Goh then approached one of his colleagues, Lim Sua Huat, thinking the latter had some police contacts. He handed Lim $1,000 and told him that it was to be used to settle Pua’s case.
Lim arranged a meeting between Goh, Lam and himself at a coffee shop some time between October and November 2015.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Thiagesh Sukumaran said in court documents that Lam told the other two men during the meeting that he could not help Pua because there was closed-circuit television footage that showed Pua’s role in the fight.
After the meeting, Lim kept the $1,000 instead of returning it to Goh.
In another incident in 2015, a secret society headman asked for Goh’s help in a case involving Mr Ng Thiam Teck who was being investigated by ICA for various offences.
Goh asked Lim if he knew anyone in the agency who could help Mr Ng get off lightly.
Lim, who initially told Goh that he did not know anyone in ICA, later found out from a lawyer that ICA had issued a warning to Mr Ng for his offences.
DPP Thiagesh said that when Lim told Goh about the outcome of the case, Goh assumed he had sought assistance from an ICA officer in getting Ng a warning. He then asked Lim whether his ICA contact required anything.
Lim told Goh his contact had asked for a sum of $3,000. “In truth, Lim had lied to the accused and had not sought assistance from any ICA officer, and did not know anyone in the ICA,” the DPP added.
In March 2016, Goh transferred $3,000 to a bank account belonging to Lim who used it for his own expenses.
Lim, then 61, was sentenced to nine months and six weeks’ jail in December 2017 for giving Lam a $1,000 bribe to show him photographs of the men arrested for rioting in breach of the Official Secrets Act.
Lam, who was then 38, quit the police force in February 2016. In August 2017, he was sentenced to seven months and six weeks’ jail.
For each bribery charge, Goh could have been jailed for up to five years and fined up to $100,000.
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