SINGAPORE – During police interrogation, the Certis Cisco corporal on trial for firing a bullet on the job claimed that he had been playing a game of Russian Roulette.

But Gregory Lai, 23, changed his tune in court on Tuesday (Jan 10), claiming he could not remember the exact words that he had used.

Lai has been charged with carrying out a rash act which could endanger human life, obstructing the course of justice and lying to the police. On the second day of his trial, he admitted to pulling the trigger of his gun twice at a Tuas Checkpoint observation post on Aug 13, 2015. During the second time, a bullet was discharged and later found under a table in the small room.

Lai tried to cover up by throwing a different bullet into the toilet bowl and reporting the loss of two bullets in the toilet. Fellow corporal Muhammad Dzul Adhar Azmi, an eyewitness to the incident, helped Lai to dump the discharged bullet in Bedok Reservoir. He was jailed three weeks and fined S$2,000 for helping Lai to do so and failing to report his offence last October.

On Tuesday, Lai told the court that he tried to put the discharged bullet together after realising that it was in two halves. But the bullet head was blunt, and the parts could not be joint together. At that moment, he panicked and wanted to cover up his act, he said.

He admitted the offence to the police five days later, after failing a lie detector test. “It was my own will to do that,” he maintained.

But he denied confessing to the cops that he was playing Russian Roulette with the gun. “I couldn’t remember the exact thing I told him that day. I told him that I misfired,” he said.

Lai added that he did not spin the cylinder of his gun, and had merely adjusted it to various positions before pulling the trigger. He claimed that he did not know the gun would go off, with the cylinder in these positions.

“You chose to take the risk that it will not fire?” asked District Judge Hamidah Ibrahim. After a long pause, Lai said, “Yes.”

The judge then quipped: “The two of you were bored.”

Lai did not respond directly to this, and would only say that he had been chit-chatting with Dzul.

He also said that he had taken safety precautions prior to shooting. For instance, he pointed the gun towards the ground, and Dzul had distanced himself beforehand.

The trial continues on Wednesday with Lai on the stand.