Man, 52, who allegedly killed Yishun landlord in 2024 took nearly 100 pills, may have been of unsound mind

A man allegedly killed his landlord in 2024 by stabbing and cutting his chest and head with three knives and a chopper, resulting in more than 90 injuries.

Affendi Bin Yusoff, 52, is facing a charge of culpable homicide of the victim, who was 35 at the time, at Block 803 Yishun Ring Road.

The incident took place at about 8:37am on Jul. 27, 2024, at the 10th-floor lift lobby.

When the police arrived, they found Fiqri Choo Iskandar lying motionless. He was pronounced dead by paramedics at the scene.

Blood was reportedly seen on the floor, parapet, and the walls of a unit.

Affendi was in court on Oct. 29 and had a Malay interpreter.

The court heard that he previously wanted to plead guilty, but both the prosecution and defence agreed with an initial psychiatric assessment that he was of unsound mind at the time of the offence.

Landlord and tenant

Reading from the statement of agreed facts, the prosecution said Affendi was renting a room from Fiqri at the time of the offence.

Fiqri owned a unit at the 10th floor of Block 803 Yishun Ring Road, and they resided there together.

Affendi, an odd-job labourer, was released from prison in June 2024 after serving a five-year corrective training sentence for housebreaking.

As he had nowhere to stay, his sister rented a room for him in Fiqri's unit.

She had known Fiqri because she was his caregiver at the time. She was not in Singapore at the time of the offence.

Took pills before incident

Investigations later revealed that Affendi had consumed 90 pills containing dextromethorphan and three gabapentin capsules the night before the incident.

He had bought them from a seller believing that they would make him energetic.

An analysis of Affendi's blood by the Health Sciences Authority (HSA) after the incident showed that there was an abuse of dextromethorphan, a cough suppressant that could cause dissociative effects if taken at high dosage.

Just before 7:30am on Jul. 27, 2024, Affendi used his phone to take a wefie with Fiqri, and continued using his phone afterwards.

Shortly after that, however, he assaulted Fiqri in his chest and head with knives and a chopper, between the unit and the common corridor.

According to the autopsy, Fiqri sustained 97 external injuries, many of them to the head.

Only Affendi's DNA was found on the weapons, and the shorts he was wearing at the time had Fiqri's blood on them.

It was also believed that Affendi allegedly cleaned up in the unit's kitchen toilet.

Was he of unsound mind?

The prosecution shared with the court three reports assessing Affendi's state of mind from a psychiatrist at the Institute of Mental Health (IMH).

In the first, the psychiatrist said that Affendi was of unsound mind during the offence as he was heavily intoxicated with dextromethorphan then, causing him to be likely unaware of his actions.

He was assessed to be of sound mind at the end of his remand period, and was now fit to plead in court.

However, the psychiatrist later appeared to go against the first report, issuing a second one saying that Affendi was not of unsound mind at the time of the offence as the dosage of dextromethorphan he had taken was still within a limit.

It meant that he was not incapable of knowing the impact of his actions and that they were wrong, the psychiatrist added.

After investigators sought clarification from the psychiatrist, he provided a third report in March 2026 that gave yet another opinion.

It was highly possible that Affendi was of unsound mind during the assault, but he likely regained his mental faculties and knowledge of his actions afterwards, the psychiatrist said.

This was evidenced in the post-accident clean-up, which suggested his problem-solving abilities at that time.

The psychiatrist added that Affendi might be motivated to make it appear that he had selective memory and not disclose his awareness at the time of the offence.

More clarification needed

The judge, however, found the three psychiatric reports "very difficult to reconcile".

He was unable to accept whether Affendi was of unsound mind during the offence.

He asked for the hearing to be adjourned to a later date, and requested that the psychiatrist join the next hearing to be questioned for further clarification.