Jail, cane
Kasem Mujafar was yesterday sentenced to four years' jail and six strokes of the cane.

BY RIANA ZAKIR
Singapore

FOR two weeks, a maid avoided a sweeper who threw her dirty looks whenever she passed by him in the void deck.

She felt brave enough to take the lift alone when she did not see him last Wednesday, on her way home after buying bread at 9.30 am.

But the sweeper, 28-year-old Kasem Mujafar, was lurking behind a pillar. Said the tearful 34-year-old maid last night: "He jumped in suddenly and blocked the lift door so I couldn't escape."

Mujafar dropped his broom and dustpan and grabbed her tightly from behind.

The 1.5 m tall maid, who only reached up to the burly molester's shoulders, could not wriggle free when he grabbed her breasts. She even tried to squat to shake him off.

"When the lift door opened on the sixth storey and I ran out, he didn't let go even though I was screaming. He got dragged out, too."

He released her when she threatened to call the police and she ran down to her employer's fourth-storey Bishan flat.

The foreign maid, who has a two-year-old son, said: "I didn't tell my boss and cried for a few minutes in the toilet. I was embarrassed."

But Mujafar struck again just one hour later, after the maid took her employer's daughter to kindergarten.

The maid was taking the same lift back with another child, a 10-month-old baby, in her arms when she saw him waiting on the sixth-storey landing.

Said the maid: "I was very shocked to see him again. He tried to grab me, but I dodged and he touched the baby's arm. I hugged the baby tightly because I was afraid he would take her away. Then I dashed home."

Then she waited 2 hours for lunchtime to call her employer's wife, a nurse, who made a police report.

Mujafar was later caught when he was clearing the rubbish chute in the next block.

Jailed
Lim Ah Ter (above) was sentenced to three years' jail and six strokes of the cane. Those convicted of assaulting or using criminal force on a person in order to steal something that the person is wearing or carrying, can be fined and jailed between one and seven years.

By Chan Seet Fun

LIM Ah Ter stole in broad daylight from elderly women who walked alone near his block in Circuit Road.

And he always struck from behind.

Lim, 43, would sneak up on them and yank the gold chains from their necks.

He was caught when a member of the public called the police after seeing one of his grab-and-run stunts.

On Oct 26, at about 3 pm, Lim snatched a gold chain and two gold pendants, valued at $400, from Madam Lee Siew Geok, 70.

Madam Lee, who had been walking behind Block 43, Circuit Road, on her way home, shouted for help.

Lim ran towards the local hawker centre, but police officers responding to the call spotted him. They arrested him after a short chase.

It was later found that Lim had snatched a gold chain and pendant worth about $1,800 on Oct 12 from Madam Sim Siew Geok, 60. She was walking along the void deck of Block 99, Aljunied Crescent.

On Aug 3, Lim pulled a similar stunt on Madam Yeo Ah Puay, 66, at a staircase landing of Block 121, Paya Lebar Way.

Madam Yeo was on her way home from the market when Lim snatched her gold chain and pendant, worth $1,200.

Lim admitted to three counts of using criminal force to commit theft, two counts of criminal intimidation as well as one count of possessing suspected stolen property at the Subordinate Courts on Wednesday.

He told the court he was an orphan, his wife was mentally ill and he had to support his 10-year-old son.

Judge Ibrahim Burhan told him he was not a four-year-old and sentenced him to three years' jail and six strokes of the cane.

Jailed:
TAY Boon Heng (above), 29, was sentenced to 10 years' jail and 24 strokes on Dec 14 last year. He had stolen about $27,000. Only about $5,553 was recovered.
Tay had five previous convictions for theft and had been sent for drug rehabilitation three times.

Investigators nail a serial lift robber with a scrap from a textbook - then re-enact their feat on TV. JILL LIM reports

A WELL-DRESSED man. In his thirties. Tall. Looking drugged-out.

That was about all that the police had at first.

Until the lift robber dropped a clue that ultimately revealed his identity like an open book. Literally.

The clue - the cover of a kindergarten textbook - helped the five investigators from Jurong Division's Robbery Specialist Squad nab their man.

The well-dressed lift-robber had committed almost 40 robberies in less than a month last August. Most were in Clementi. But interviews had turned up nothing but his description.

All the victims except one were women aged between 17 and 72, and he usually threatened them with a knife.

That knife was his undoing. Because, after a robbery on Aug 16 last year, he dropped the casing he had made for it.

Made from the cover of a kindergarten textbook, it was the clue police needed.

FIND TEXTBOOK

On Aug 20, they received a tip-off about a man who looked like their suspect.

On Aug 22, they went to his flat and found the textbook from which the cover had been torn.

The culprit, Tay Boon Heng, was hiding under a bed.

The head of the team, Staff Sergeant Abdul Rani Abdul Sani, 32, said: "It meant we had him. It was the hard evidence we needed"

They arrested Tay five hours later, just six days after they had found the torn cover.

Staff Sgt Abdul Rani could not help saying: "Bingo".

Four of the five investigators play themselves in this week's Crimewatch.

PENALTY

The penalty for armed robbery is a jail term of two to 14 years and a minimum of 12 strokes of the cane.