The final chapter in the story of a man who spent 13 years as a fugitive from justice was written yesterday in a Singapore courtroom.
James Nalla Rajan Naidu Adhiseshan, 58, was sentenced to one and a half years in jail for “cheating by impersonation” and “voluntarily causing hurt with a dangerous weapon, The New Paper reported.
His life on the run ended back in February. That’s when he was caught at a medical facility as he tried to receive medical care by using a photocopied version of another man’s ID card.
According to Channel NewsAsia, the brush with the law that started all this came in 2006, when Naidu got into a dispute with a newspaper vendor while at a 7-Eleven and slashed the latter with a blade he kept in his wallet. He was arrested, but escaped before he could be charged. He would spend the next 13 years on the run.
During his time as a fugitive, James was still able to seek medical treatment using photocopied identification cards belonging to other men. The card James had been using since 2017 belonged to a then-prison inmate, Chandran Sinathanmby.
In a movie-worthy twist of fate, Sinathanmby, who was out of prison at this point, bumped into the offender at Sengkang General Hospital in February, The Straits Times reported, catching him in the act of using his photocopied ID at a registration counter. Within moments, a hospital employee was calling the police, and security guards held him until they arrived.
Unsurprisingly, plenty of Singaporeans found humor in the crazy happenstance leading to Naidu’s capture.
