Bangladeshi who killed ex-fiancee hanged on Feb 28

A man who strangled his former fiancee in a budget hotel in Geylang in 2018 was hanged on Feb 28.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said the capital sentence was carried out on Bangladeshi national Ahmed Salim, 35, who had petitioned to the President for clemency but was unsuccessful.

This is the first judicial execution for murder in the Republic since 2019, a Singapore Prison Service (SPS) spokesman told The Straits Times on Feb 28, in response to queries. He added that it is the first execution in 2024.

Ahmed, a painter, had strangled Indonesian domestic worker Nurhidayati Wartono Surata in a room at the Golden Dragon Hotel on the evening of Dec 30, 2018, after she refused to leave another man she was seeing.

Ahmed was charged with murder on Jan 2, 2019, and sentenced to death on Dec 14, 2020.

An appeal against his conviction was dismissed on Jan 19, 2022.

SPF said Ahmed was accorded full due process under the law, and had access to legal counsel throughout.

During Ahmed’s court proceedings, it was revealed that he and Ms Nurhidayati had started a relationship in May 2012 after a chance encounter.

They agreed to get married in December 2018, with Ahmed putting a ring on her finger at a party in 2017.

But she had an affair with a Bangladeshi plumber, Mr Shamin Shamizur Rahman, in mid-2018.

Ahmed confronted her after suspecting that she was cheating on him, and she admitted to dating another man.

Ahmed then asked his mother to help him look for a wife. She found one and arrangements were made for his wedding to take place in February 2019.

But a few months later, Ahmed and Ms Nurhidayati reconciled.

However, they quarrelled over her infidelity and on one occasion, while they were in a hotel room, Ahmed pressed a towel over her mouth. He let go after she struggled.

In late 2018, Ms Nurhidayati began talking to Bangladeshi general fitter Hanifa Mohammad Abu on Facebook.

She later told Mr Hanifa that she was in a relationship with Ahmed and promised she would make a clean break with Ahmed.

On Dec 9, 2018, Ms Nurhidayati told Ahmed that she had a new boyfriend and that he should return to Bangladesh for his arranged marriage.

While she told him during a meeting on Dec 23 that year that she would continue seeing him, she later broke up with him over a phone call.

Ahmed convinced her to meet him again seven days later and they had sex at a hotel.

He threatened to kill Ms Nurhidayati if she did not end her relationship with Mr Hanifa. When she refused, Ahmed strangled her with a towel.

A judge found that Ahmed had decided to kill Ms Nurhidayati even before Dec 30, 2018, so long as she refused to leave her new boyfriend and return to him.

This was because he had brought a rope to the hotel and had cleared out his bank account earlier on the day of the murder, among other things.

Ahmed was represented by a team of lawyers – Mr Eugene Thuraisingam, Mr Chooi Jing Yen and Mr Hamza Malik.

On Feb 28, Mr Thuraisingam told ST that they had argued hard that Ahmed’s adjustment disorder had impaired his mental responsibility for the offence of murder, and that he should be spared the death penalty and be sentenced to life imprisonment instead.

He said: “We were unable to convince the court of this. The court was of the view that he knew what he was doing was wrong, and he did not lose control of himself.”