Man convicted of murdering friend at Toa Payoh car park over phone repair costs

SINGAPORE — When the mobile phone he had borrowed from his female friend needed to be repaired, he asked her for S$300 to cover the costs.

An argument over the costs at a multi-storey car park in Toa Payoh ended in the woman being killed after he threw her off the building on Aug 31, 2015.

Her body was only discovered three days later.

On Tuesday (May 21), Syed Maffi Hasan, 28, was found guilty in the High Court of murdering Atika Dolkifli, 23.

He faces the death penalty or life imprisonment.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Bhajanvir Singh told the court that the prosecution is seeking life imprisonment for him. Sentencing was adjourned to a later date as submissions have to be made on the number of strokes of the cane to be imposed.

While Syed Maffi was due to give evidence in his defence, he told Justice Aedit Abdullah that he did not wish to do so.

His lawyer, Mr Pratap Kishan, told TODAY that he did not wish to let the matter go on and trouble his mother further, who could have been called to the stand as a witness.

MET THROUGH FACEBOOK

Syed Maffi and Atika became acquainted through Facebook in 2013. They lost contact a few months later, before rekindling their friendship in May 2015.

During the trial, the court heard that Atika had lower-than-usual intelligence level when she was 12 but she was able to work.

She lent Syed Maffi her iPhone 5C in 2015 when he did not have a phone at the time.

When the mobile phone screen became faulty, he took the phone to a shop where he was charged S$90 for repairs. He paid another S$35 when its battery turned faulty about four weeks later.

The unemployed man then told Atika that the repairs cost S$300 as he was in need of money.

He showed up several times at Atika’s workplace, a Pizza Hut branch in Toa Payoh, to look for her but to no avail.

On Aug 20, 2015, he turned up at her house and told her father that she owed him S$300, but was turned away. He was also warned by her brother not to contact her again, and to keep the phone.

Less than two weeks later, on Aug 31, Syed Maffi arranged to meet Atika after she finished her work shift. They went to the roof garden of a multi-storey car park along Toa Payoh Lorong 2, where they got into an argument.

He pushed her on her chest and she fell backwards off the edge of a flight of stairs, hitting the back of her head on the steps.

While she was semi-conscious and groaning, he then dragged her by her armpits down the remaining steps to Deck 5A of the building. Lifting her, he threw her over the parapet. She plunged head-first onto a landing on Deck 3A.

An autopsy report showed that Atika sustained multiple fractures and serious lacerations on her scalp and face.

After he threw her off the building, Syed Maffi took steps to cover his tracks. He picked up her name tag and keys, walked up the stairs to the roof garden, and threw them in a drain near the stairs.

He removed her mobile phone from her handbag, and left the handbag in a covered drain near the bus stop. Then, he discarded the mobile phone's cover in a recycling bin and threw the SIM card down the rubbish chute of his kitchen.

The next evening, on Sept 1, Atika’s father made a police report saying she had not returned home.

Syed Maffi was identified during police investigations, which included the use of closed-circuit television footage.

When police officers took him back to the scene on Sept 8, he showed them how he had dragged Atika and thrown her off the parapet.

An Institute of Mental Health psychiatrist, who examined Syed Maffi on four separate occasions and spoke to his family, concluded that he did not suffer from any psychiatric disorder and knew the nature of his acts.