Malaysian man gets life sentence for strangling Chinese ex-colleague
- Boh Soon Ho was convicted of murdering former co-worker Zhang Huaxiang by strangling her with a bath towel at his Singapore flat in 2016
- The 51-year-old, who harboured unrequited love for her, then tried to have sex with Zhang’s corpse
In love with his ex-colleague, Boh Soon Ho treated her like his girlfriend and began spying on her when he felt like she was pulling away.
Upon learning that Zhang Huaxiang had gone out with another man she met at a casino, and when she told him it was “normal” for her to be intimate with her ex-boyfriend from China, he saw red.
He strangled the Chinese national with a bath towel in his Circuit Road rented flat in Singapore on March 21, 2016, after a steamboat lunch, then tried to have sex with the 25-year-old’s corpse and took photographs of her nude body.
On Friday, the 51-year-old Malaysian and Singapore permanent resident was found guilty of murder and sentenced in the High Court to life imprisonment. He could have received the death penalty.
Boh’s lawyers Eugene Thuraisingam and Chooi Jing Yen, who had sought a conviction on a reduced charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, have since filed an appeal against the conviction and sentence on Boh’s instructions.
Two other charges of attempted sexual penetration of a corpse, as well as the misappropriation of Zhang’s iPhone and S$50 (US$35.98) in cash, were withdrawn after the conviction.