The following lists events that happened during 1983 in Singapore.
Caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment in Singapore. It can be divided into several contexts: judicial, prison, reformatory, military, school and domestic. These practices of caning as punishment were introduced during the period of British colonial rule in Singapore. Similar forms of corporal punishment are also used in some other former British colonies, including two of Singapore's neighbouring countries, Malaysia and Brunei.
Capital punishment in Singapore is a legal penalty. Executions in Singapore are carried out by long drop hanging, and they usually take place at dawn. 33 offences— including murder, drug trafficking, terrorism, use of firearms and kidnapping — warrant the death penalty under Singapore law.
Tay Yong Kwang is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was first appointed Judicial Commissioner in 1997, appointed Judge in 2003, and appointed Judge of Appeal in 2016. He was noted for being the presiding judge in several notable cases that shocked the nation and made headlines in Singapore.
Lai Kew Chai was a Malaysian-born Singaporean judge and the longest-serving member of the Supreme Court Bench, having served for almost 25 years as a Judge.
Khoo Teck Puat Hospital is a 795-bed district general hospital located at Yishun in Singapore. Named after Singaporean hotelier, Khoo Teck Puat, the hospital is part of an integrated development together with the adjoining Yishun Community Hospital. The hospital was officially opened by Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew on 15 November 2010, but began seeing outpatients and day surgery patients on 28 March that year. Spanning over 3.5 hectares in the Yishun Central Area overlooking the scenic Yishun Pond. The hospital offers an extensive range of medical services and healthcare options for residents living in the north. As of October 2017, KTPH merged with the National Healthcare Group and is now known as Yishun Health, together with Yishun Community Hospital and Admiralty Medical Centre.
Choo Han Teck is a Singaporean judge of the Supreme Court. He was formerly a lawyer before his appointment to the court as a judge. It was revealed in 2021 that Choo was one of the defence lawyers representing Adrian Lim, the infamous Toa Payoh child killer who was executed in 1988 for charges of murdering a girl and boy as ritual sacrifices. In 1994, Choo also defended Phua Soy Boon, a jobless Singaporean who was hanged in 1995 for killing a moneylender.
Professor Chao Tzee Cheng was a renowned forensic pathologist in Singapore. Chao was respected for solving several notorious crimes in Singapore, and raised Singapore's level of professionalism in the area of forensics.
Punch Coomaraswamy was a Singaporean judge, diplomat and politician who served as Speaker of the Parliament of Singapore between 1966 and 1970, and Singapore Ambassador to the United States between 1976 and 1984.
The Andrew Road triple murders was a case of robbery turned triple murder in a bungalow at Andrew Road, Singapore, in 1983. The robbery was committed by two young men armed with a rifle and knife. During the robbery, one of the robbers murdered three of the five hostages while the other protected the remaining two hostages from his partner. Eventually, both were arrested and charged with murder, though it would end in the killer being hanged while the other, who did not take part in the killings, received life and caning for armed robbery. It was further revealed in police investigations that the killer, Sek Kim Wah, was also responsible for an unrelated double murder of two more victims, whom he killed using the same modus operandi as for the Andrew Road victims, making him the first and only serial killer in Singapore to date.
Tan Chor Jin, also known by his alias Tony Kia, was a Singaporean gang leader known for fatally shooting 41-year-old Lim Hock Soon, his former friend and nightclub owner, using a semi-automatic Beretta 0.22 calibre pistol on 15 February 2006. Tan, who had underworld affiliations and was a member of Ang Soon Tong since his early years, had also robbed the Lim family of their valuables before he escaped Singapore to Malaysia, where he was arrested ten days later. The media gave him the name "One-eyed Dragon" given that he was blind in the right eye.
Life imprisonment is a legal penalty in Singapore. This sentence is applicable for more than forty offences under Singapore law, such as culpable homicide not amounting to murder, attempted murder, kidnapping by ransom, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, voluntarily causing grievous hurt with dangerous weapons, and trafficking of firearms, in addition to caning or a fine for certain offences that warrant life imprisonment.
The Tiong Bahru bus hijacking occurred on 29 November 1979 in Singapore. Two armed men, in an attempt to escape arrest for an earlier robbery, took hostages and then hijacked a bus, while exchanging gunfire with police. The incident ended when one of the men was wounded then committed suicide, and the other surrendered to the authorities.
On 15 February 1989, Mirza Abdul Halim bin Mirza Abdul Majid, a 23-year-old Singaporean and police constable (PC), was shot in the head by a suspected burglar who stabbed him in the neck and snatched his service revolver before using it to shoot PC Abdul Halim. PC Abdul Halim, who was later promoted to Corporal during his hospitalization, went into a coma and died 33 hours later. The killer Ong Yeow Tian, who was an ex-convict and one of the two suspects involved in a prior housebreaking case, was subsequently engaged in a shoot-out with several other policemen but was finally arrested. Ong's accomplice was also caught and later sentenced to incarceration and caning for the burglary.
Khor Kok Soon was a Singaporean gunman who was notorious for his high-profile shoot-out with the police at Shenton Way on 30 July 1984, and was also the prime suspect behind the murder of a 26-year-old lorry driver, whom he held as a hostage to help him drive away from the police before he allegedly killed him. Khor, who was involved in previous armed robbery offences prior to the 1984 shooting incident, fled Singapore after shoot-out and went on the run for the next 19 years, therefore becoming one of Singapore's ten most wanted criminals.
Ng Theng Shuang was a Penang-born Malaysian and criminal who was one of the two armed robbers involved in a robbery attempt of the Tin Sing Goldsmiths at South Bridge Road in November 1992.
Lim Chwee Soon, alias Ah Soon, was a Singaporean armed robber who committed a total of three armed robberies between June and October 1995. In his latest robbery, Lim used his gun, a Colt .45, to fire seven shots and three of them caused severe injury to How Sau Che, the sales manager of the goldsmith shop robbed by Lim at the People's Park Complex on 30 October 1995.
Sha Bakar bin Dawood, alias Bakar Negro, was a Singaporean seaman and armed robber who was wanted for committing an armed robbery and discharging a revolver at Thiam Siew Avenue in January 1975. In this particular case, Sha Bakar entered a brothel and threatened three people in an armed hold-up, and also wounded the three hostages by shooting his gun at them. Sha Bakar was afterwards confronted by the police, with whom he exchanged gunfire before he fled the scene. Sha Bakar subsequently ran off to Malaysia, where he was arrested by the Royal Malaysia Police at the border between Malaysia and Thailand within the same month of the shoot-out. The Thiam Siew Avenue robbery case was the sixth out of his three-month robbery spree from November 1974 to January 1975.
