Man jailed again for threatening doctor
By Shaffiq Alkhatib | Posted: 20 September 2011 1515 hrs
SINGAPORE: Just months after his release from prison, Abdul Nasir Abdul Rahim landed himself in trouble again when he threatened to slit a doctor's throat on March 15 this year.
The 45-year-old jobless man also admitted to using abusive language on a police officer when he dialled an emergency telephone line earlier that day.
Abdul Nasir, who was given 20 years' jail in 1997 for rape, was sentenced on Tuesday to two weeks' jail and fined S$3,000 for his latest string of offences.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Joshua Lai said that Abdul Nasir had phoned police at around 3.30pm, claiming that a bank had cheated him.
Thirty minutes later, he received a call from a private number and assumed that a police investigator was on the other end of the line.
He told the caller to meet him at the National University Hospital as he was accompanying his mother there for a medical appointment.
But when no one turned up by about 5pm, an intoxicated Abdul Nasir phoned the hotline again and verbally abused a police operator who took his call.
Shortly afterwards, he followed his diabetic mother into a specialist clinic where he observed medical staff performing a procedure on her toe.
However, he was unhappy with the way she was treated and yelled at an attending podiatrist demanding that his mother be given pain-killers.
But the podiatrist, 30-year-old Morimoto Jun, felt that the injection was not necessary and could even be harmful to the elderly lady given her medical condition.
Abdul Nasir then demanded that a certain other doctor attend to his mother and asked him to come down before he slits the doctor's throat.
Even though the doctor's name was not mentioned in court, DPP Lai said that he was the one who had attended to Abdul Nasir's mother when she was earlier warded at the hospital.
Prosecution added that Abdul Nasir further alarmed hospital staff when he claimed he was an ex-convict who was just released from prison after committing murder.
DPP Lai pressed for a jail sentence, stressing that Abdul Nasir had intimidated healthcare workers who serve the community and need to work in a safe environment.
But defence counsel N Kanagavijayan asked the court to instead give his a client a fine.
The lawyer pointed out that Abdul Nasir had a drinking problem and had vowed to go for regular treatment sessions at the Institute of Mental Health to address the issue.
District Judge Kamala Ponnampalam said that Abdul Nasir had committed a serious offence before sending him to jail.
- CNA/fa
