This article lists important figures and events in Malaysian public affairs during the year 1991, together with births and deaths of notable Malaysians.
Kajang Prison is a prison located in Sungai Jelok, Selangor, Malaysia.
On 10 October 1990, just three days after her whole family migrated from Italy to Singapore, 38-year-old Italian housewife Clementina Curci Di Girolamo, also known as Clementina Curci, was brutally murdered by an intruder inside her new house at Bo Seng Avenue. After she was strangled and became unconscious, Curci's naked body was immersed in a bathtub full of water, resulting in her death due to both drowning and strangulation. Police also established that several items had been stolen from the house, and the hired cleaners of the house stated they never noticed anything amiss while working outside the house.
On 23 April 1991, Kuah Bee Hong, a ten-year-old schoolgirl, was strangled to death at her Viking Road home by Goh Hong Choon, a 25-year-old family friend of Kuah's family. Goh was found to have entered the home to commit robbery and silenced the girl, who was the only one present at her flat. Goh was charged with murder and he admitted to the robbery and strangulation; the motive for the murder was due to Goh wanting to get rid of possible witnesses for his crime and basically needed money to mitigate his financial situation. Goh was found guilty of the killing after a trial that lasted roughly two days, and he was executed for the crime three years later in July 1994.
On 30 November 1994, Senior Staff Sergeant (SSSgt) Boo Tiang Huat of the Singapore Police Force and his partner were on their routine spot checks when they encountered a man behaving suspiciously, and approached him to check his identity. However, the 27-year-old ex-convict Zainal Abidin Abdul Malik retrieved an axe from his black bag and used it to strike Boo on the head, which killed the 47-year-old policeman instantly. Zainal Abidin was subsequently arrested and charged with murder. Boo was posthumously promoted as Station Inspector (SI) after his death, as a recognition of his contributions to the police force from 1973 to 1992, and from 1993 and 1994, when he ended his retirement and re-joined the force.
On 11 April 1989, 56-year-old goldsmith Phang Tee Wah was kidnapped by two men before he was murdered. Despite his death, the kidnappers demanded ransom from Phang's family, who were kept in the dark about Phang's death as they contacted the police about their predicament and the crime. Subsequently, four days after Phang was killed, his corpse was discovered and the police were able to nab the two kidnappers - Phang's former employee Liow Han Heng and security guard Ibrahim bin Masod, who was Liow's friend and driver.
Between April 1992 and December 1992, there were two cases of taxi drivers being killed in Singapore, specifically in secluded areas of Yishun. The first was Seing Koo Wan, a 58-year-old taxi driver who was found with several stab wounds on his body. Despite a police appeal, Seing's killer(s) was never found and the case remained unsolved for eight months before another taxi driver, Teo Kim Hock, was allegedly kidnapped by two men who demanded a ransom from his family. However, in truth, 59-year-old Teo was killed before the calls for ransom arrived.
On 2 November 1984, 19-year-old interior designer Lim Hwee Huang was thrown off a tenth storey HDB flat at Kallang Bahru, after she was raped by 27-year-old Eurasian Singaporean Hensley Anthony Neville, who fled to the neighbouring country Malaysia. He was on the run for more than two years before he was finally arrested by Malaysian police, who sent him back to Singapore in March 1987 for the charge of murdering Lim. Neville, who was caught in the Malaysian state of Selangor, was also a suspect behind two unsolved killings in Malaysia.
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.
On 27 October 1990, a thirty-year-old Malaysian named Lim Yeow Chuan, who was a transvestite, was found dead at Johore Road within Bugis, where it was a hotspot for prostitution of transvestites prior to its demolition in the 1990s. According to his colleagues, Lim was last seen with two young Indian men before he was discovered dead. In January 1991, two suspects - consisting of one Malaysian and one Singaporean - were arrested and charged with his murder. Later, while the Singaporean suspect Kuppiah s/o Saravanan was sentenced to five years' jail and twelve strokes of the cane for robbery, the Malaysian suspect Soosay a/l Sinnappen remained facing a murder charge.
On 12 February 1991, a 78-year-old housewife Sukarti binti Amari was found murdered inside her Telok Blangah flat by her nephew and husband. Her eight rings, gold chains and other jewellery worth S$5,000 were missing from the flat. Two suspects were arrested at least three months later for Sukarti's murder. It was established that both the killers had planned to enter Sukarti's flat to commit robbery, and they devised using chilli powder to blind the deceased before restraining her and strangling her.
On 1 December 1990, at Singapore's Tanjong Katong Road, a 20-year-old Malaysian woman named Wong Mee Hiong was stabbed to death inside her rented house and her body was wrapped in a blanket before being hidden in a storeroom. Wong's corpse was discovered by her fiancé and ten days after her killing, Wong's killer Yap Biew Hian, a fellow tenant of the house and also a Malaysian, was arrested for the case and charged. Yap, who admitted to killing the victim with intent to rob her, was sentenced to death three years after he murdered Wong.
On 14 December 1990, at Marsiling, Singapore, during a gang-related incident, a 20-year-old bystander and Malaysian citizen Sivapragasam a/l Subramaniam was struck on the head with an axe and he died as a result of the head injuries. It was revealed that the infamous gang Ang Soon Tong had entered the territory of their rival gang Gi Leng Hor, which happened to be in the same area where Sivapragasam was killed and had the intent to settle scores with the rival gang relating to prior conflicts. Sivapragasam was mistook for a rival gang member and therefore attacked; five other bystanders were also injured. A total of 14 suspects were arrested, and 13 of them were jailed for rioting and causing grievous hurt. The 14th and final suspect, Sagar Suppiah Retnam, who was the headman of Ang Soon Tong, was found guilty of murdering Sivapragasam and sentenced to death on 31 May 1994. Sagar's appeal was dismissed, and he was hanged on 7 July 1995.
On 27 July 1984, 74-year-old Packiria Pillai Krishnasamy was murdered inside his flat at Tah Ching Road, Jurong. The police managed to arrest two suspects, Ramachandran Suppiah and Krishnan Varadan, who were both allegedly responsible for causing Packiria's death during a robbery bid. In May 1987, Ramachandran and Krishnan were both sentenced to hang for murdering Packiria. Although the duo lost their first appeal against the trial verdict, Ramachandran was acquitted after his second appeal, due to insufficient evidence proving that Ramachandran had participated in the crime, and Krishnan however, remained on death row after failing to challenge his conviction a second time. Krishnan was hanged on 15 April 1994 after spending seven years on death row, and he was reportedly the longest-serving death row prisoner in Singapore at the time of his execution.
On 13 November 1985, 33-year-old Indonesian fish merchant Nurdin Nguan Song was murdered at a hotel along Waterloo Street, Singapore. Nurdin died after he was slashed and stabbed repeatedly by two men, who were revealed to have been paid by Nurdin's business rival to attack him. Between 1988 and 1992, the two murderers were arrested after spending several years on the run from the police, and charged with murder. One of them, a Malaysian named Loh Yoon Seong, was found guilty of murdering Nurdin and sentenced to death, while the other, a Singaporean named Tan Swee Hoon, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and for having killed Nurdin and committed an armed robbery while on the run, Tan was jailed for 23 years and given 24 strokes of the cane.
On 27 February 1991, inside his home at Geylang, 32-year-old businessman Ng Keng Hua was stabbed twice by two attackers during a robbery bid, and he died as a result of the stabbing while warded at a hospital. One of the murderers, Tan Bee Hock, was found guilty of murdering Ng and sentenced to death in 1993. The other man, Toh Laie, however, remains on the run since then, and he was never found.
On 22 January 1988, 20-year-old Bangladeshi national Mohamed Shafiqul Islam, alias Mohd Abdul Islam, was found murdered at a construction site at Bukit Timah, with his genitals being severed off. Within the following month, the police managed to apprehend two Bangladeshi workers, who were responsible for causing Mohamed Shafiqul's death. The two suspects - Mohamed Bachu Miah and Mohamed Mahmuduzzaman Khan - were revealed to have killed Mohamed Shafiqul after the former's younger brother was arrested for illegally working in Singapore due to Mohamed Shafiqul allegedly reporting the matter to the police, which made Mohamed Bachu angered and therefore conspired with Mahmuduzzaman to kill Mohamed Shafiqul. After standing trial for 18 days in March 1991, Mohamed Bachu and Mahmuduzzaman were both found guilty of murdering Mohamed Shafiqul and sentenced to death by the High Court. Both the murderers were hanged on 23 July 1993 after their appeals were rejected by the higher courts and the President of Singapore.
On 12 April 1987, nine-year-old Malaysian schoolgirl Ang May Hong was last seen by her eldest brother when the siblings split up while on the way to buy breakfast at a market near her house in Jalan Ipoh, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Ang's eldest brother, who went back home due to a stomachache, noticed her disappearance when he returned to find her at where he last saw her.
On the night of 23 April 1992, at a bungalow in Jalan Turi, Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia, an Indian-American family and their maid were attacked by their security guard. Although the matriarch of the family managed to escape the onslaught, the family's two sons – Arjun Talwar and Kabir Talwar – and their Filipino maid Natalia Fernandes were brutally murdered by the guard, Ariffin Agas, who was arrested on the same day of the mass murder. Ariffin, who claimed that the victims were killed by a group of three Chinese men and denied all the charges, was found guilty of murdering the three victims and sentenced to death in March 1994. Ariffin's appeals were dismissed and he was hanged on 27 December 2002.
Jimmy Chua Chap Seng, nicknamed Hokkien Chai, was a Singaporean criminal and former police officer who was infamous for masterminding the 1986 Pudu Prison hostage incident. Chua, who allegedly committed the murder of a police officer and several firearm offences in Malaysia, was detained at Pudu Prison when he and five other inmates decided to orchestrate a prison escape by taking two members of the prison staff hostage for six days. The incident ended with no fatalities, and Chua and his five accomplices were all arrested and faced kidnapping charges over the hostage incident. However, in a separate court case, Chua was sentenced to death for firearm charges under the Internal Security Act, and was hanged on 10 October 1989 without being convicted for his role in the Pudu incident, which oversaw the imprisonment of his five associates for the case.
