Probably the city’s most high-profile criminal defence lawyer, Subhas Anandan, died this morning in the Singapore General Hospital at the age of 67.
Mr. Subhas had been in poor health, said The Straits Times (ST), having been diagnosed with heart and kidney failure last year. He’d had three heart attacks since 1978, lost one kidney to cancer in 2001, and suffered diabetes and blocked intestines.
The senior partner at RHTLaw Taylor Wessing and the founding member and president of the Association of Criminal Lawyers in Singapore got called to the Bar in 1971.
Since then, he’d defended people accused of some of Singapore’s most horrific crimes, including Anthony Ler, the man who hired a teenager to murder his wife, as well as Took Leng How, the vegetable packer who killed eight-year-old Huang Na.
Mr. Subhas’ peers also consider him a pioneer in providing pro bono services, long before it was considered an essential facet of legal practice, Channel NewsAsia reports.
The former University of Singapore student told My Paper that he wasn’t afraid of dying because he believed he’d done “more good than bad”. In the interview conducted just last year, he also cited heavy drinking and smoking as some of his early-life regrets.
Mr. Subhas leaves behind his wife Vimala and 24-year-old son Sujesh.
Photo: ST
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