SINGAPORE: Last month, a 30-year-old Chinese national grew frustrated with the wifi speed at his rented flat, finding it slow as he was playing a mobile game; he then flew into a rage and attacked his landlady.
On Wednesday (June 21), Li Xin entered a guilty plea to charges of criminal intimidation with the intent to cause death and of causing hurt by choking.
A judge has given him a five-month prison sentence.
On the evening of May 16, Li, a housekeeper at a hotel, was playing a game on his mobile phone while drinking. His landlady, 61-year-old Mdm Lin Suhua, was in her room then.
Police say Li had six beers that night.
Having grown enraged due to the slow wifi, he confronted Mdm Lin. He told her to come out of her room and argued with her when she did so.
He also threatened her with a knife, a 14-cm blade.
Fortunately, she calmed him down, and he stepped away to talk to another tenant. He also returned the knife to the back of his shorts.
Shortly afterwards, another tenant, Mr Ji Zhaoliang, called Li on the phone and said he had been waiting for him for two hours.
Mdm Lin shouted back at Mr Ji, telling him to come immediately.
She also asked why Mr Ji had not come home after work but it was Li who answered, telling her, “Because I told him I will be killing all your family and all of you.”
When Mr Ji got home, the landlady told him about Li’s behaviour and that he had a knife. This angered Li again, and he threw her on his bed and began to strangle her.
Fortunately, Mr Ji stepped in to stop him.
Mdm Lin then locked herself in her room.
Later, police were called by the employer of Ms Su Ju, another tenant in Mdm Lin’s home.
Li could have faced as much as three years of jail time, a $5,000 penalty, or both for having caused hurt by strangling. As for criminal intimidation to cause death, he could have been jailed for 10 or been made to pay a penalty, for both. /TISG
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