Former City Harvest Church fund manager Chew Eng Han was supposed to start serving his jail sentence of three years and four months tomorrow after the court approved his application to delay it to spend Chinese New Year with his family.
Unfortunately, the convict tried to make a run for it today. Or rather, he sailed away — the 57-year-old attempted to flee the country on a motorized sampan this morning, according to the police at a news conference held this afternoon. Channel NewsAsia reported that Police Coast Guard officers arrested him at about 8:47am today, seizing about S$5,000 in cash, a couple of phones, and some fishing equipment found on the boat.
Chew is one of the six former City Harvest Church figures who was convicted in 2015 for misappropriating S$50 million in church funds. Unlike the rest of his cohort who surrendered themselves to the authorities on Apr 21 last year, he has yet to start serving his jail term (for criminal breach of trust and falsification of accounts). Also unlike his conspirators, Chew represented himself in High Court and tried to challenge his conviction, but failed both times. In the end, he asked to defer his sentence for one last time to spend the Chinese New Year holidays with his family and was due to turn himself in tomorrow.
With the attempt to flee the country, however, Chew has effectively landed himself in deeper doo doo. On top of his current conviction, he could be jailed for up to six months and fined S$2,000 if found guilty of leaving Singapore unlawfully.
The police revealed that they made two additional arrests in relation to Chew’s attempted abscondment. Tan Poh Teck, 53, who was piloting the getaway sampan, was nabbed on board with Chew. Another man, 61-year-old Chew Eng Soon, was also arrested for abetting the offence.
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