Aljunied is actually the name of a family which has contributed greatly to the early immigrant society of early Singapore. The patriarch of the Aljunied family was Syed Sharif Omar bin Ali Aljunied. He left Yemen with his uncle, Syed Mohammed bin Harun Aljunied, in 1816 to spread Islam in Asia.
Before coming to Singapore, he was a successful trader in Palembang and Sumatra, known for his honesty and because his direct lineage with the Prophet Muhammad. Because of this lineage, he was awarded the title of ‘Pengeran Sherif’ or Prince to the Malays.
Now, a descendant of the Aljunied family has come forward to pay for a lawyer for the security officer accused of attacking three madrasah students.
The entrepreneur, who wants to be anonymous, said that he is stumping up the money “purely out of love and compassion”.
The 48-year-old Koh Weng Onn accused of hitting 3 Madrasah students on 1 Apr in Paya Lebar MRT station was ordered to be remanded at the Institute of Mental Health for psychiatric evaluation.
The prosecution revealed in Court that Koh has made a “disproportionately high” number of 90 police reports over five years. A bulk of these reports appear to be generated by Koh’s belief that he had been targeted by others.
Among the reports made by Koh, a security guard, were the ones he made against a sales person immediately after buying a product from her, a lady whom he perceived was sitting inappropriately, reports on quarrels with his colleagues on their work deployment, and against strangers whom he believed bore him ill-will, the court was told.
Koh’s elder brother, Johan Koh, further clarified in Facebook that his brother is not a racist, but has mental illness. The elder Koh who is a Muslim said that the accused refused to be persuaded by the family to seek help for his suspected mental condition.
In her post (which’s privacy setting has since been changed to private) Ms Nisha alleged that her students were kicked and hit by “a foreign Chinese middle-aged man wearing a red t-shirt, light brown bermuda with black boots carrying a green backpack while holding a white plastic bag filled with a heavy item.”