Man who sent photo of maid who hung herself to chat group convicted of breaching OSA
SINGAPORE — A man who sent a photo of a domestic helper who had hung herself to a WhatsApp chat group was found guilty of beaching the Official Secrets Act (OSA) on Monday (26 August).
Fazli Hisham Mohd Fairuz Shah had received the photograph from his girlfriend, a paramedic who attended to the maid at the scene of the incident. The photo was later shared with others and began circulating on social media.
Fazli, 29, was convicted on charges of sending to the chat group a photograph of the maid hanging from a ceiling fan and a photograph of a Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) call sheet.
Nurizzah Afiqah Hussain, Fazli’s girlfriend, was fined $3,000 on 7 August last year after admitting to unlawfully sending the two photos to Fazli, then a commercial pilot.
The former paramedic with a private ambulance operator and her ambulance crew responded to a call involving the maid on the evening of 1 February 2017.
Earlier that day, Nurrizah received a call sheet stating that the maid had hung herself while her employer’s family was overseas for five days. Nurrizah then took a photo of the document and sent it to Fazli.
While at the scene, Nurrizah’s colleague, Shaik Haziq Fahmi Shaik Nasair Johar unlawfully took a photograph of the maid and sent it to a WhatsApp chat group that Nurrizah was part of. Nurrizah forwarded the photo to Fazli.
Fazli later sent the two photos to a separate WhatsApp chat group, which had 31 members. The photos were later forwarded to three other domestic helpers, one of whom subsequently posted it on her Facebook account.
During his trial, Fazli testified that he was not aware that Nurrizah was a paramedic working at a company whose services were used by the SCDF. The couple had been together since November 2015.
Fazli claimed he only found out that Nurrizah began working as a paramedic since November 2012 when she gave her testimony in court.
He said that he had alerted his friends via WhatsApp as he felt that the photos would be of interest to them. He claimed to be unaware that the photos were related to Nurrizah’s work.
On 3 February, when police officers came to Nurrizah’s house to ask her about some photographs, Fazli overheard the exchange and deleted the photographs from his phone. He was arrested later that night.
When recording his police statement, Fazli had stated that Nurrizah was working with an outsourcing company appointed by the SCDF and knew that the photographs were related to his girlfriend’s work, the prosecution said in its closing submissions.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Lee Zu Zhao also argued that Fazli, who had served his national service with the SCDF, would have recognised a call sheet and would have been aware of an SCDF directive which prohibited official information from being communicated to external parties without authorisation.
In finding Fazli guilty, District Judge Luke Tan ruled that Fazli would have known that Nurrizah had obtained the photos in the course of her work. Fazli would have known that the photos sent to him were in contravention of the OSA and that he had no authority to send the photos to others, said the judge.
Fazli is expected to be sentenced on 2 September.
For each count of wrongful communication of information, Fazli can be fined up to $2,000 and jailed up to two years.
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