SINGAPORE, July 4 — A domestic worker who stabbed her employer’s 70-year-old mother-in-law to death was sentenced to life imprisonment in the High Court today (July 4).
Zin Mar Nwe, who was 17 at the time of the incident, stabbed the elderly woman 26 times after she threatened to send Zin back to her agent.
The Myanmar national previously claimed trial to a single charge of murder in November 2021.
However, she was convicted in May after High Court Judge Andre Maniam rejected the defence’s arguments that Zin had not been conscious of the stabbing and was in a dissociative state of mind.
What happened
Zin started working for victim’s son-in-law on May 10, 2018. She stayed with her employer, his wife and their two teenage daughters.
The court heard during the trial that she would wake up at about 5.30am and go to bed around 11pm.
The victim, who intended to stay in Singapore for a month, arrived in Singapore from India about two weeks after Zin started working for the family. The victim and her family members cannot be named due to a gag order.
On the day of the killing, the domestic worker was alone with the employer’s mother after the rest of the family left home at 11.30am.
Between then and about 12.15pm, Zin Mar Nwe claimed that the victim became upset with her and told her loudly: “Tomorrow, you go agent. (sic)”
Angered by this, Zin grabbed a knife and stabbed the victim 26 times.
She then left the flat and went to her maid agency to request for her passport but left when she realised that staff members at the agency were going to call her employers.
After taking the public transportation to various places, Zin eventually returned to the maid agency in a taxi at about 5.30pm, where staff members alerted the police and she was arrested there.
Bone test done to ascertain Zin’s age
Deputy Public Prosecutor Sean Teh said that the prosecution was not objecting to life imprisonment instead of a death penalty as there was reason to believe Zin was below 18 at the time of offence.
Under the Criminal Procedure Code, offenders who were under 18 at the time of the offence cannot be sentenced to death.
She was thought to be 23 years old at the time of the incident in 2018 but investigations later revealed that she was 17.
DPP Teh added that she was below 18 when she worked for her previous employers between January and May 2018, a month before the incident.
“Further, while her passport indicated her age to be 23 at the time of the offence, a bone-age test conducted at Tan Tock Seng Hospital seven days after the incident states that the bone age of Zin’s is most likely 17,” said DPP Teh.
Justice Maniam agreed with the prosecution’s point.
“Having convicted you of murder and because there is reason to believe you were below 18 at the time of offence, I sentence you to life imprisonment,” he said.
Anyone convicted of murder can be sentenced to death or life imprisonment. — TODAY
