SINGAPORE: JOHN MARTIN SCRIPPS FACES DEATH SENTENCE IN SINGAPORE FOR MURDER OF SOUTH AFRICAN TOURIST

Record ID: 225345

  • Title: SINGAPORE: JOHN MARTIN SCRIPPS FACES DEATH SENTENCE IN SINGAPORE FOR MURDER OF SOUTH AFRICAN TOURIST
  • Date: 3rd October 1995
  • Summary: SINGAPORE (OCTOBER 3, 1995) RTV-ACCESS ALL 1. GV REAR EXTERIOR OF THE SUPREME COURT 0.04 2. GV PRISON VAN ARRIVES AND ENTERS COURT BUILDING 0.09 3. GV/SV DEFENCE LAWYER EDMOND PEREIRA ENTERS COURT BUILDING 0.18 4. SV/SCU HEAD OF THE PROSECUTION JENNIFER MARIE (CENTRE) WITH DEPUTY PUBLIC PROSECUTORS NORUL HUDA (RIGHT) AND TOH HAN LI (LEFT) ARRIVE AT COURT ENTRANCE 0.25 5. GVS JANET SCRIPPS, SISTER OF MARTIN SCRIPPS AND JEAN SCRIPPS, MOTHER, ENTER COURT BUILDING 0.48 6. SCUS/GV SENIOR FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST PROFESSOR CHAO TZEE CHENG GETS OUT OF CAR AND ENTERS COURT 1.12 7. SCU/GV JAMES QUIGLEY, PRISON OFFICE CATERER ARRIVES 1.33 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
  • Embargoed: 18th October 1995 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: SINGAPORE
  • City:
  • Country: Singapore
  • Reuters ID: LVA9EUAEQUNWWBK0GJI7Y9FI3F9K
  • Story Text: A 35-year-old Briton on trial in Singapore for murdering a South African tourist and dismembering the corpse was trained as a butcher while in prison in Britain, a prison official testified on Tuesday (October 3).

    John Martin, also known as John Martin Scripps, faces the death sentence if convicted of killing 32-year-old brewery engineer Gerard George Lowe, who disappeared while on a shopping trip to the city-state in March.

    The trial began on Monday (October 2) with evidence of how Lowe's body was skilfully cut up and wrapped in black plastic bin bags before being sunk into the Singapore harbour.

    On Tuesday, James Quigley, a British Prison Office caterer at Albany Prison on the Isle of Wight, told the court he had taught Martin how to dismember and debone slaughtered animals.

    Pathologist Chao Tzee Cheng had told the court on Monday that the person who cut up Lowe's body was knowledgeable -- "clearly a very skilful person...either a doctor, medical surgeon, veterinary surgeon or possibly a butcher".

    Martin fled Britain in October 1994 while on a home visit from prison.

    The prosecution alleges that Martin, using a false name, had checked into the same Singapore hotel room as Lowe on March 8 and later killed him.

    Martin flew to the Thai island resort of Phuket in Thailand on March 15 and was arrested on his return to Singapore's Changi airport on March 19.

    Police witnesses testified that when he was arrested he was wearing a money belt containing four different passports, each with different names but with his own photograph, and that one of the passports belonged to Lowe.

    Police said he also had passports belonging to Canadians Sheila Mae Damude and her son Darin, whose dismembered and mutilated bodies were later found on Phuket island.

    Thai police have issued a warrant for Martin's arrest in connection with those murders.

    Martin has entered no plea but "claimed trial" which, under Singapore law, means he is contesting the charges. Singapore does not have jury trials.


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