Marina Bay Sands bomb hoax: Charges dropped

[MarrickG]

01 Jun 2010

Source: The Straits Times

THE man accused of calling the police to say the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) casino was rigged to blow up has had the charge against him withdrawn.


Mr Fang Xing Chi, 30, walked out of court a free man yesterday.


The prosecution gave no reason in court for dropping the case.


However, the police said last night they had charged Mr Fang in the light of the seriousness of the offence. But after further investigations, they applied for the prosecution to drop the charges as they could not prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt.


Mr Fang is aggrieved at having been made to spend a week in a Jurong police station lock-up while investigations were ongoing.


Saying he had suffered mentally and physically as a result of being wrongly accused of the prank call, he added: “In the lock-up, they provided me super lousy food.


“The air-con was too cold... no bed, and a lousy blanket that could not resist the cold.


“I had many sleepless nights during the lock-up... I suffered for nothing.”


He is happy to be granted a discharge amounting to an acquittal but is angry that his reputation has taken a beating.


Mr Fang, who lives in Johor Baru with his mother, told The Straits Times that he had been resting at the void deck of a block of flats in Choa Chu Kang at around 2am on May 10, some hours before he was due to report for his reservist training, when he was arrested on suspicion of being the prankster behind the bomb hoax.


He said a policeman turned up and questioned him. Then another two officers came along and asked him to go with them. They would say only that a prank call had been made.


He was taken to a nearby public phone, given a voice test and then handcuffed and taken to the station.


The next day, he was charged in court with making the call to the police, saying 10 C4 or plastic bombs were going to explode in MBS’ casino.


The prankster allegedly said: “You have 12 hours to response to this, okay? This is not a scenario. I am from the Islamic Jihad Party control from Osama. This is real.”


Mr Fang said: “I need to clear my name and my reputation. I hope this thing won’t happen again. My friends got implicated because of my case.”


His friend had been called up by the police and questioned, he said.