A Myanmar domestic worker who stabbed her employer’s mother-in-law 26 times has had her murder conviction reduced to culpable homicide not amounting to murder, after the Court of Appeal accepted that she acted under sudden provocation.
Zin Mar Nwe, now 24, was just 17 when she fatally attacked the 70-year-old woman in 2018.
Source: Shin Min Daily News
On Tuesday (26 Aug), she was sentenced to 17 years’ imprisonment, Shin Min Daily News reported.
The incident took place on 25 June 2018, between 11.27am and 12.17pm, in an HDB flat.
Zin had woken at 4.30am that morning to prepare breakfast for the family.
After her employer, his wife, their daughter, and four others left the flat, only Zin and the elderly woman remained.
According to Shin Min Daily News, the victim later shouted at Zin, telling her: “Tomorrow, you go back to the agency.”
Fearing that she would lose her job, be saddled with debt, and be repatriated to Myanmar, Zin took a knife and stabbed the woman multiple times while she was watching television.
She was initially convicted of murder in the High Court last year and sentenced to life imprisonment, as the death penalty could not be imposed due to her age.
Zin later appealed the ruling.
During the appeal hearing, Zin’s pro bono lawyers argued that she had worked in Singapore for just five months and had already changed employers three times.
Despite being only 17 and frequently scolded, she did not complain and had shown improvement in her work after discussions with her agency.
The three-judge panel, led by Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon, concluded that Zin acted under sudden provocation and would not pose an ongoing threat to society.
Although the victim’s threat consisted of just a single sentence, the court found that its impact was significantly amplified by Zin’s young age, immaturity, financial hardship, and alleged mistreatment by the victim.
While the nature of the attack was deemed brutal, the judges noted that Zin did not attempt to conceal the offence or evade arrest.
Her lawyers urged the court to impose a sentence of no more than 18 years, arguing that the case did not fall within the most severe category under Penal Code section 304(a).
In addition, they emphasised that Zin did not suffer from any mental illness.
The defence maintained that the sentence should focus on retribution and rehabilitation, not incapacitation, especially given Zin’s lack of violent history and the fact that she would be repatriated upon release, removing any threat of reoffending locally.
After weighing all the circumstances, the court revised the charge to culpable homicide not amounting to murder and sentenced Zin to 17 years’ imprisonment.
During the trial, Zin claimed she was in a “dissociative state” at the time and did not know what she was doing.
However, the High Court rejected this defence, citing her four separate confessions to the police that she had stabbed the victim.
To protect the identity of a minor witness, the court has issued a gag order prohibiting publication of the names of the deceased, her family members, and the exact location of the incident.
Also read: S’pore domestic helper who stabbed employer’s mother-in-law to death has charge reduced
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Featured image adapted from Shin Min Daily News and by MS News.