Help Us Help Him

Tatap, who comes from a small remote village on the border of Thailand and Myanmar, is illegally employed as a construction worker by Lim. Lim has two other illegal foreign workers who all stay in one room in Lim’s flat. The workers are terrified of Lim who constantly beats them and threatens to report them to the Singapore immigration authorities. Tatap has twice tried to commit suicide and once tried to run away from Lim’s flat. He was found by Lim and brought back to the flat, where Lim violently assaulted him and threw acid on his hands. Tatap was so traumatized that he kept crying in his room for two days. On the afternoon of the third day, Lim told Tatap to stop behaving like a woman or he would treat him like a woman and make him his “wife”.

That night Tatap heard Lim laughing to his wife, Sheena and telling her how he had threatened to have sex with Tatap. Tatap heard Lim’s wife replying, “Well, maybe it’s time for you to get rid of that loser.” Sheena then left the house to buy some food. Tatap was overcome by mixed emotions of fear, humiliation, anger and desperation. He went to Lim’s bedroom to confront him. Lim saw Tatap and laughed, “So my ‘little girl’ has come for some attention.” Upon hearing these words, Tatap went into a frenzy and attacked Lim violently. Lim tried to fight back, but being under the bed sheets, was unable to defend himself. After bashing Lim until he lost consciousness, Tatap left the room.

An hour later, Sheena returned. She saw Tatap sitting on the sofa and shouted at him to get up and go to his room or she would call Lim. Tatap told her that he had killed Lim. Sheena walked up to Tatap and told him to mind his language, whereupon Tatap grabbed a nearby lamp stand and smashed it on Sheena’s head, causing a severe gash along her left temple. Sheena fell backwards, her head slammed against the wall and she slid to the floor unconscious. Tatap left the flat and was found wandering around the next morning by the police, who later went to the flat and found both Lim and Sheena dead.

Medical experts agreed that the injury to Sheena’s left temple was not likely to result in death. They found that Sheena had cracked her skull against the wall and that that injury was sufficient in the ordinary course of nature to result in death. The actual cause of death was determined to be intracranial bleeding, which had caused Sheena to die shortly after cracking her skull against the wall.

Tatap made the following statement to the police:

“Lim’s taunt had made me very angry and upset, especially following the constant humiliation and abuse during my stay with Lim. Where I come from, this is a terrible insult that can be offered to a man. I never meant to kill Sheena and only hit her because I hated her and just wanted to get out. Lim and Sheena are very cruel people.”

To give Tatap a better defence, we will need to travel to Thailand and learn the cultures of his people. This will cost money. Alot of money for the 8 of us (even by Airasia). Please donate and give this poor man a right to a proper defence.