SINGAPORE — A 90-year-old man who killed his 74-year-old wife during a devastating attack inside their Bukit Panjang flat has been assigned a five-year notional imprisonment period by the High Court — a rare decision that could become an important test of Singapore’s updated laws for accused persons who are mentally incapable of standing trial.
But the five-year period imposed on Ridawi Morsudin on Friday, Aug. 28, should not be confused with an ordinary prison sentence following a conviction.
Ridawi remains unfit to plead, incapable of conducting his defence and unlikely ever to regain that ability because of the severity of his neurocognitive disorder, according to medical assessments considered by Justice Hoo Sheau Peng. He was suffering from dementia and may also have been delirious when he killed his wife, Aminah Abdul, in June 2024.
That distinction is what makes the case legally significant.
What does a “five-year notional imprisonment period” actually mean?
Under Singapore’s Criminal Procedure Code, special procedures apply when an accused person is incapable of making his defence because of his mental condition.
Instead of proceeding through an ordinary trial and sentencing process, the court may be required to determine a notional imprisonment period — essentially the imprisonment period the court considers appropriate on the statutory assumptions required by the regime.
The case is then reported to the relevant minister, who determines the next step permitted under the law, including confinement in an appropriate institution or conditional release, depending on the applicable circumstances. Ridawi will remain at the Complex Medical Centre at Changi Prison Complex while that decision is pending.
Singapore’s Ministry of Law said amendments dealing with the unsoundness-of-mind regime came into force on Feb. 14, 2025. Among other changes, they clarified the High Court’s role in cases involving accused persons who are incapable of making their defence and the mechanisms governing confinement and conditional release.
CNA reported that Ridawi’s case is believed to be the first of its kind dealt with following those amendments.
Why the judge chose five years instead of two or three
Prosecutors had sought a five-year notional period.
Ridawi’s lawyer, Muhammad Taufiq Suraidi of the Public Defender’s Office, argued for between two and three years, pointing to his client’s advanced age, deteriorating health and doctors’ assessment that he presents a low risk of reoffending.
The defence also argued that five years could effectively become a life-ending period of detention for a man of Ridawi’s age and physical condition.
Justice Hoo nevertheless concluded that reducing the period to two or three years would not sufficiently account for the need for protection.
The judge noted that despite Ridawi’s age and condition, he had been capable of carrying out an extraordinarily forceful attack when he was 88 and delirious. Medical reports now assess him as a low reoffending risk largely because he requires extensive assistance with ordinary daily activities.
The prosecution had also pointed the court to earlier cases involving offenders suffering from conditions that seriously distorted their perception of reality, where jail terms generally ranged from six to nine years.
The killing inside the Bukit Panjang flat
The case began during the night of June 4, 2024.
Ridawi was living with his wife and their grandson in a flat at Block 137 Petir Road.
A relative delivered food that evening and left at about 7pm after seeing Ridawi asleep in a recliner while his wife was sitting on a sofa.
Sometime after midnight, the couple’s grandson checked a live CCTV feed from inside the flat.
He saw his grandmother motionless on the floor.
The grandson rushed home and discovered her in a pool of blood, while Ridawi was nearby mumbling to himself. Paramedics later pronounced the 74-year-old woman dead.
Investigators determined that Ridawi and his wife were the only people inside the locked flat during the critical period in which she was killed.
The scale of her injuries was severe.
An autopsy documented at least 34 lacerations, incised wounds, stab wounds and other sharp-force injuries. She also suffered extensive fractures involving her skull as well as fractures to her neck, spine and ribs.
Her cause of death was sharp-force injuries to the head, neck and chest.
Lianhe Zaobao reported that investigators recovered two pairs of bloodstained scissors from the flat. CNA’s earlier reporting said the victim’s blood and DNA were detected on the scissors and on Ridawi, while bloodstain-pattern evidence supported the conclusion that she had been attacked around the sofa and another part of the living room.
His mental decline had begun years earlier
What happened in the flat did not emerge without warning signs that Ridawi’s cognitive health had been deteriorating.
Court documents reported by The Straits Times showed that his mental faculties had noticeably declined by 2022.
He stopped recognising members of his own family, became increasingly aggressive and hot-tempered, and repeatedly wandered away from home and became lost.
Police attended to him on 10 occasions between 2023 and 2024 because he was lost or disoriented.
In early 2024, Ridawi was admitted to Ng Teng Fong General Hospital after being found wandering in a confused state at a void deck.
He was diagnosed with mixed dementia and had experienced delirium. He was later enrolled at St Luke’s Eldercare but was discharged from the programme in April 2024 after becoming increasingly uncooperative, according to evidence previously presented in court.
His family subsequently organised a roster to bring meals to the elderly couple and installed the CCTV camera that would later alert their grandson to the tragedy.
Doctors say his condition is unlikely to improve enough for trial
After Ridawi was taken into custody, investigators found him incoherent and disoriented.
Psychiatric assessment subsequently diagnosed him with major neurocognitive disorder caused by Alzheimer’s disease and vascular disease, accompanied by behavioural disturbance.
A psychiatrist also considered it possible that Ridawi was experiencing delirium at the time of the killing.
That condition may have significantly distorted his perception of reality. The psychiatrist told the court that an attack of this kind was within the possible range of symptoms associated with delirium, although such extreme behaviour was uncommon.
His condition is progressive rather than temporary.
Medical assessments indicate that he remains incapable of making his defence and is unlikely to recover sufficiently to participate meaningfully in a criminal trial.
The charge changed as the case developed
Ridawi was initially charged with murder after the June 2024 killing, according to contemporaneous court reports by CNA and The Straits Times.
By the time the case reached the High Court under the unsoundness-of-mind procedure, he faced a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder.
Had he been mentally fit to stand trial and ultimately convicted on that culpable-homicide charge, CNA reported that the offence could carry life imprisonment or imprisonment of up to 20 years and a fine.
But that conventional sentencing question is no longer the immediate issue before the authorities.
The question now is how Singapore’s legal system should deal with a man accused of extraordinarily serious violence when severe, irreversible brain disease means he cannot meaningfully defend himself in court.
What happens next
Justice Hoo will report the case under the statutory procedure to the relevant minister.
The minister will then decide what order should be made under Singapore’s unsoundness-of-mind framework, including whether Ridawi should remain confined or be conditionally released in accordance with the law.
Until that decision is made, Ridawi will remain remanded at the Complex Medical Centre at Changi Prison Complex.
That means Friday’s five-year ruling does not bring this extraordinary case to a conventional end.
Instead, it establishes the legal benchmark around which the next phase will operate — one that has to balance the severity of a woman’s killing, the protection of the public, and the reality that the 90-year-old man responsible is suffering from a profound brain disorder that doctors believe will prevent him from ever standing trial.
And because this appears to be the first High Court case of its kind since Singapore’s revised regime took effect, what happens to Ridawi next could provide an important reference point for how future cases involving permanently unfit accused persons are handled.
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