S'porean man, 37, threatened to kill foreign domestic worker with knife after developing feelings for her

A Singaporean man, who developed feelings for his domestic worker, blamed the woman for "destroying his life" and threatened to kill her with a knife.

Muhammad Khairulnaim Bin Rosli, 37, later pleaded guilty to one count of criminal intimidation and was jailed for 40 days on Jun. 16, reported CNA.

Confessed his feelings to victim

According to court documents seen by Mothership, Khairulnaim developed romantic feelings for the victim about three months after she began working for his household.

He confessed his feelings to the victim, causing her to feel "disturbed and uncomfortable".

Around mid-December 2023, she told him that she did not like him and also blocked him from her social media, including Instagram, TikTok and WhatsApp.

Subsequently, Khairulnaim confessed to his wife about his feelings, leading her to ask him for a divorce on Jan. 1, 2024.

Day of incident

On Jan. 12, Khairulnaim fetched his two daughters, then aged four and five years old, and returned to their house around 2:30pm to 3pm.

After he asked both his daughters to have their showers, he went into the kitchen and saw the victim's phone left open on her WhatsApp chat with her husband.

While he had wanted to take a photo of the husband's mobile phone number, the victim caught him in the act and snatched her phone away.

Khairulnaim then proceeded to the storeroom to retrieve something as he wanted to fix his toilet bidet.

The victim followed, asking him why he had taken her phone.

When the victim accidentally pushed the storeroom door hard, Khairulnaim questioned why she was angry.

He then kicked the storeroom door thrice and then went to the toilet to fix his toilet bidet.

Spoke with wife on phone

Afterwards, the victim told Khairulnaim that his wife wanted to speak with him over the telephone.

He then complained to his wife that the victim had not given their daughters any rice, but his wife refuted the claim, saying that the victim regularly fed them.

The victim also asked him to check the CCTV recording, but he did not have access to them as the wife had removed him from the access rights.

Khairulnaim proceeded to have an afternoon nap and he woke up at about 5:45pm.

He then went to the storeroom to organise his belongings for his night shift.

Threatened to kill victim

However, Khairulnaim felt angry with himself, the victim and his wife, court documents stated.

He felt that the victim had destroyed his life and he felt that he could do the same by telling the victim’s husband that she had a boyfriend in Pakistan.

Khairulnaim then contacted his roster master and told him that he needed to take urgent leave.

At around 6:03pm that same day, he went to the kitchen and took a knife in his right hand.

He then walked into the hallway of the house leading to his room and turned to face the victim who was in the living room about 6m to 7m away.

With the knife in hand, he told the victim that he wanted to kill her.

He had held the knife at his hip level with the tip of the knife blade pointed towards the victim and raised the knife slightly as he uttered the threat.

The wife returned home just a few minutes later and the victim ran away from the house fearing for her safety.

A member of the public found the victim crying and called the police.

The man was arrested later that night at 8:55pm.

Top photo from Unsplash