Man, 60, in S'pore gets jail sentence increased from 28 to 34 years after baseless accusations against lawyer

A 60-year-old Malaysia-based man who was found to have made baseless accusations against his lawyer had his jail sentence increased from 28 years and nine months to 34 years.

This took place during Lian Hoe Heng's Court of Appeal submission, Lianhe Zaobao reported, adding that judge, Justice Hri Kumar Nair, represented the judges in delivering his appeal ruling on May 12, 2026.

Case

According to the court judgement, Lian, who was based in Malaysia at the time, worked for a drug syndicate from 2020 to his repatriation to Singapore in April 2023.

His role involved coordinating the supply of controlled drugs into Singapore, the judgement stated, adding that another person known as "Kadi", whose identity is unknown, would provide Lian's phone number to customers.

Kadi, who was also based in Malaysia, would arrange with other syndicate members for drugs to be delivered from Malaysia to various parts of Singapore after Lian received orders from customers through phone calls or text messages and conveyed them to Kadi.

The judgement stated that Lian also managed client payments, where he instructed clients and runners to transfer money to different bank accounts in Singapore and Malaysia.

This process also saw him receive a portion of the funds as commission.

Lian also engaged the help of a "Lao Ban Niang", whose identity is unknown, to transfer Lian's and Kadi's drug benefits from Singapore bank accounts to Malaysian bank accounts.

The total amount transferred was over S$1 million.

Charges

Zaobao reported that Lian thus faced a total of 23 charges, which included abetting drug trafficking and money laundering.

Lian then pleaded guilty in the High Court in December 2024 to one charge of abetting drug trafficking and four charges of money laundering.

At the time, Lian was sentenced to 28 years and nine months' jail.

Grounds of appeal

The court judgement stated that Lian raised three grounds of appeal.

Firstly, he claimed his sentence was "manifestly excessive".

Secondly, he "sought clarification" on why the sentence for his money laundering charges was "on the higher [end of the] spectrum considering that it [was his] first offence".

Third, Lian claimed to have received "ineffective assistance" from his lawyer, Choo Si Sen.

Allegations against lawyer

According to the judgement, Lian's first set of submissions on appeal included three specific allegations against Choo.

The first was that Choo had supposedly "promised to deliver a sentence of 23 years [and one] month" for Lian's global sentence, which comprised 22 years for the first charge and 13 months for the money laundering charges.

Lian claimed this promise "was not fulfilled".

The second was that on the day of his sentencing, Lian claimed to have "barely had any information or updates pertaining to [his] charges", and supposedly only received the agreed statement of facts on the day itself.

'Baseless, made in bad faith'

The judgement stated that Lian's allegations against Choo were baseless and made in bad faith for the following reasons:

Lian did not make general assertions about the legal process or system, but rather specific factual claims that he had not seen the statement of facts or the mitigation plea until either the day of the hearing or after it.

The judgement said that this created the clear impression that Choo had left Lian in the dark with respect to the matters set out in those documents, and had submitted them to the prosecution and the judge without his approval.

It noted that Lian's allegation was comprehensively refuted by Choo, who stated that he had visited Lian in jail.

Choo had then obtained Lian's approval on the contents of the draft statement of facts and the draft mitigation plea, after reading them to Lian.

According to the judgement, Lian also did not provide a reason for claiming Choo's supposed promise to him "was not fulfilled".

In addition, the judgement stated that the timing of Lian's retraction of his earlier allegations suggested it was not due to "genuine remorse or contrition".

It was, however, due to Lian experiencing "cold feet" after the "possibly adverse consequences" of making baseless allegations against Choo were put to him.

Sentence

Lian did not apologise to Choo for his attack on Choo's competence and character, but instead directed a "new attack" that Choo had failed to explain the reasons for the divergence between the position he had advocated and the sentences imposed by the judge, the judgement noted.

It concluded by stating that the global sentence on Lian, based on running the sentences for his first and 11th charges consecutively, was enhanced to 34 years' jail.