Defending the Wrong Person

One of the greatest Legal Eagles, whom I truly admire is undoubtedly a Singaporean Eurasian, the late Jewish ex-Prime Minister David Marshall. He was a man of great integrity and believed in truth and justice for every person.

Here is an extract of an interesting case with a slight sprinkle of dark humor, which he took up during the colonial era in Malaya. It is an excerpt from Alex Josey's The David Marshall Trials (Singapore: Times Books International, 1953).

In Defense of the Wrong Man

Twenty-five years ago, as Fred told the story, Alf Bellows, a European security man, a sort of district officer, was murdered in a small Chinese village in Johore, just across the Causeway, a couple of an hours' drive from Singapore. The man was a drunken sadistic bully. After a bout of heavy drinking, he would torment the keeper of a general store, a scraggy, unhappy Chinese with a large family and a wife dying of cancer.He was known to all the villagers as Ah Tong.Whenever Ah Tong could, he would try to fondle Ah Tong's teenaged daughter, Mei Lin who helped her father in the store. She was terrified of Bellows.

To be continued....