Lawyer for 2005 Orchard Road body parts murderer explains why he doesn’t look for ‘truth’ in criminal cases

Shashi Nathan, a litigation lawyer specialising in criminal law, still recalls intricate details of a murder case he handled some 15+ years ago, in 2006 — that of Guen Aguilar, a Filipino woman who was accused of murdering a fellow domestic worker.

It was a gruesome case that started with a cleaner’s discovery of a bag containing the head and limbs of the deceased somewhere near Orchard MRT station, followed closely by the discovery of her torso in a suitcase at MacRitchie reservoir park.

“From the public’s perspective, it’s macabre, you know? You see a dismembered body — the head in one place, the body parts in another place” explains Shashi, recalling the initial public sentiment that “a terrible crime” had most definitely taken place.

The public’s appetite for more details of the case was whetted by theories spun out of the little information known about the case. Shashi recalls some of them:

“There [were] all sorts of rumours flying… you know, what happened to this girl? Why would two girls fight? Why would one have to chop the other’s body up? Did she die by the chopping — which would have been quite a gruesome way of dying? Was there a man involved, were they fighting over a man?”

Amid all of this, Shashi came to understand that there could be diplomatic repercussions if it was not well managed.

Getting called upon to defend the accused person in such circumstances, Shashi’s first thought was to “have an open view”, and to block out the “noise” which would have kept him from focusing on the task at hand:

“I told my team… to defend her, we cannot be too affected by all this noise. We have to really look at this case, from the basics, understand the story from what she tells us, and then look at the evidence independently.”

Shashi recalls how his team sat down with Aguilar — first, to find out her story, and then, to see if what she said could be supported by evidence.

Evidence and truth: Related, but distinct concepts

This has been Shashi’s approach to the hundreds of criminal cases he has handled over the years — to look at the evidence, and to study how it does (or does not) support one’s case.

Evidence, says Shashi, is the lawyer’s focus. To him, it is not something that should be mixed up with the idea of truth.

“The truth is often confused with evidence.

Evidence is what is needed by the court to come to a certain finding, or conclusion. The truth, or your own belief in the truth, is not the same as evidence before a court.”

After all, Shashi explains, an accused person’s honest belief in their own story is not enough to win a case.

In Aguilar’s case, as Shashi and his team found out, the fight between the two women had started as a dispute over money, and — according to Aguilar — she’d had no intention of killing the other woman.

As Shashi gathered from Aguilar’s account, the two women were in fact close friends, who got into financial difficulties, and resorted to taking loans from illegal moneylenders. The women had been discussing the matter of repayment, which turned into a heated argument and then a fight.

While Aguilar admitted to the killing of the deceased, she maintained that it had happened suddenly and in the course of the fight.

As Shashi narrates the story to us, he also points out the pieces of evidence that supported Aguilar’s story: When she was arrested, strangulation marks on her neck and bruises from the fight were observed.

Another key fact that supported Aguilar’s case was the pathology report and other forensic evidence. These suggested that the body was only cut up one and a half days after the deceased had passed on, and supported Aguilar’s claim that the dismemberment was not an act of cold-blooded murder, but rather, an act to get rid of the evidence.

The defence lawyers were thus able to show that there was “a gap in time” between the fight, and the dismemberment of the deceased, Shashi says. This turned out to be a key distinction that led the prosecution to pursue a reduced charge of culpable homicide, instead of a murder charge.

“If you don’t have evidence to justify you, or back up your truth, you’ll lose,” he says matter-of-factly.

Different understandings of the truth

“There are many truths,” says Shashi sagely, offering the example of a bribery case to illustrate the point.

“One person may be saying, ‘oh, this person offered me 100 bucks to do this. I think he tried to bribe me.’ That is one truth. That's one person’s subjective interpretation of a conversation.

But the other person says, ‘No, actually, I wanted to thank you for something you did before.’ [Or] you know, maybe I owed somebody some money, so I want to give it back, but there's no intention to bribe him.

In both their minds, they think they are telling the truth. But they're both having two different understandings of the truth.”

The legal system, where cases are decided by a court, comes in “to determine which truth to believe… and how to deal with that truth,” explains Shashi.

Trust and integrity in “a noble profession”

In the midst of this, the role of a lawyer is to focus on the evidence, and to make arguments about how that evidence should be treated or interpreted.

And while it is sometimes thought that lawyers will only focus on the evidence that serves their clients’ case, Shashi is clear that such behaviour crosses a line.

“To present evidence in such a way that… the court sees a skewed version of the evidence, or to tailor your client’s evidence in such a way that will suit your case theory, is not acceptable,” he says.

Shashi is sympathetic to the numerous challenges that lawyers face (clients’ demands and timelines, financial considerations, needing to look out for junior lawyers and their development), which might put pressure on them to take shortcuts.

While an unscrupulous lawyer might be able to “get away with it once or twice”, getting caught has implications beyond affecting the outcome of the case.

“Forget about the client and forget about the case — you may lose that case. [But] the next time you come to court, the judge is always going to think, ‘This guy, the last time he tried to do this.’ Even if you're doing your job properly, present the evidence properly, the judge will be thinking, ‘Do I even trust this guy?’”

But, he says, lawyers who are in it for the long haul would know better than to take chances with their own reputation. A single mistake can end a career, after all.

It’s no wonder that Shashi takes a firm stance towards anyone who would take such shortcuts for the sake of their client’s instructions or case theory. In his view, they should stop practice altogether.

“It can take years, maybe a whole lifetime, to build and cement your relationship, your reputation in the courts. You can lose it in a few words.”

No “different justices” in the legal system

In Shashi’s view, Singapore’s legal system is sometimes unfairly critiqued by onlookers following reports about cases “from the outside looking in”.

Critical comments from “keyboard warriors” who don’t know the facts do sometimes catch his eye — such as comments on cases he is involved in.

A recent case he dealt with invited comments that the accused person “must come from a rich family”, with a “rich lawyer” charging exorbitant rates to guarantee a favorable outcome before the courts.

Shashi recalls shrugging off the comments, falling back on his own personal experience with the legal system, saying that “no rich family gets different justice.”

“I know some people feel that in Singapore, there's different justices for different people. I want to say this categorically. Because I've dealt with enough cases, I've looked after extremely wealthy clients and looked after clients with no money. And we've done the same for both. I know the criminal justice system treats everyone fairly.”

Shashi concedes that people may come to their conclusions based on reports of a case’s developments without following it closely, or by reading what is said on social media. But he maintains that people should read more about the matter to have an in-depth understanding before passing judgment.

To understand this point of view, one must perhaps bear in mind that Shashi is not just a lawyer who’s been working in the system for nearly three decades. He’s also been working on the system, in various capacities over the years, to develop and improve it.

Working on the system

As a senior member of the criminal bar, Shashi has kept a close watch on what he calls “the tripartite relationship” between “the bar, the bench (i.e. judges), and the prosecution”.

It’s a relationship that has gotten stronger and stronger, especially over the past decade or so, he says, something he’s witnessed first-hand while serving in various capacities as the Chairman of the Criminal Practice Committee previously, and now, of the Singapore Academy of Law’s Criminal Justice Chapter.

“There's this wrong perception that we're all against each other,” says Shashi. While it is an adversarial system, the defence and prosecution are “integral cogs of the same wheel”, he says.

Who should be a lawyer?

Having an understanding of the fact that lawyers are cogs in a larger system is something Shashi says can only be picked up over time, through experience.

Something that can’t be picked up through experience, however, is the “right” motivation for the job.

“Many young people come and say ‘I want to do law.’ But they're just not suited for it. They do it because their parents want them to do it, they do it because, ‘Oh it’s cool to be a lawyer.’ But I think we need more than that,” Shashi muses.

Law can be a good job that pays a decent salary, and Shashi concedes that many do practice for the money. But to him, money alone doesn’t explain the fact that he still gets excited to come to work every day.

Instead, it’s the constant challenge of fighting cases, doing something different every day, and having that awareness of the difference that a good lawyer can make in a case, that keeps him coming back for more.

After 28 years of practice, the senior lawyer still insists that he has more to learn, and more to give.

“You know, when I leave this job one day, I want to feel that we have made a difference,” he says.

Top image via Nigel Chua.

This sponsored article by Withers KhattarWong LLP helped the writer feel that much more educated.