Beach Road chopper attack: Man pleads guilty to attempted murder of wife

SINGAPORE: The man who attacked his wife with a chopper outside a Beach Road restaurant in 2022 admitted to attempted murder on Tuesday (May 20).

Cheng Guoyuan, 49, pleaded guilty to the charge and will have two counts of criminal intimidation taken into consideration for his sentencing, which has been adjourned to Jun 3.

Videos of the incident were widely shared, drawing the nation's attention to the brutality inflicted on Ms Han Hongli, 44, even as at least 10 bystanders tried to fend off Cheng by throwing various objects at him. 

Cheng and Ms Han are Chinese nationals. Cheng was a kitchen assistant at a steamboat restaurant on Veerasamy Road, while Ms Han was a manager at Chong Qing Steamboat Bar, located along Beach Road. 

The pair met in 2004 and registered their marriage in 2009 with the Chinese authorities. Ms Han has a daughter from a previous marriage and had a son with Cheng in 2006. 

In 2016, Ms Han came to Singapore to work and would remit around 10,000 yuan (S$1,800) to Cheng every two months. 

However, the relationship deteriorated over time as Cheng felt that Ms Han looked down on him for earning less.

In April 2021, while she was in Singapore, Ms Han discovered that Cheng had done something wrong to her daughter. The wrongdoing was not revealed in court. 

Angered by Cheng, Ms Han confronted him over the phone. Cheng admitted to the act but felt that it would not affect Ms Han's daughter. 

Cheng pleaded with her not to report the act to the police and promised to compensate the daughter. 

Ms Han eventually agreed for Cheng to pay the daughter 40,000 yuan as compensation, but their relationship worsened. Cheng managed to borrow the sum of money but fell into financial difficulty subsequently.  

By then, Ms Han stopped remitting money to Cheng, in part because she was not able to work due to the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"The accused believed that his reputation and his family’s reputation were more important than his life, and would rather die than 'losing (his) face'," the prosecution said. 

"As he was fearful that the victim would tell his relatives and friends about the wrongdoing, and wanted assurance from the victim that this would not happen, the accused kept contacting her via the WeChat messaging and calling application, requesting that she forgive him and let the matter rest."

Cheng also asked Ms Han not to divorce him. 

On Sep 4, 2021, Cheng came to Singapore to work as a cleaner at Outram Community Hospital without informing Ms Han.

On Nov 25, 2021, Cheng went to Ms Han's workplace at Beach Road to look for her. Shocked to see him, Ms Han quarrelled with Cheng outside the restaurant for about half an hour. 

Two days later, Cheng called Ms Han and threatened to kill her if she refused to reconcile with him. 

He also threatened to kill Ms Han's brother, whom he blamed for revealing his wrongdoing to Ms Han, and his family. Ms Han refused to give in and Cheng then sent her several harassing messages.

"He also requested to talk to her in person, and informed the victim that she was his woman in this lifetime and would be a ghost of his family when she dies," the prosecution told the court. 

Ms Han lodged a police report over the threats on Nov 28, 2021. 

Cheng was investigated by the police and warned not to look for the victim. He then returned to China on Jan 5, 2022. 

Back in China, Cheng sought ways to return to Singapore for work and to resolve the issue with his wife. 

He managed to secure a job at the steamboat restaurant and returned to Singapore on Apr 6, 2022, again without telling his wife.

On Apr 12, 2022, Cheng came up with a plan to kill Ms Han after ruminating on how she had refused to forgive him despite his love for her, and how she could control his future. He felt that she had done things to let him down.

Wanting to settle things once and for all, he devised a plan to hack her to death with a cleaver if she refused to confirm that she would keep his wrongdoing a secret. 

That afternoon, Cheng visited Ms Han's workplace and walked past it twice but did not see her. 

He told his son to take care of himself and that he was "really very tired".  To his brother, Cheng said he wanted to die with Ms Han, who had "destroyed" him. 

He mentioned wanting Ms Han to "pay the price for betraying" him and that he had "no face to live on anymore". 

On Apr 13, 2022, after Cheng's work, he took a cleaver with a blade of about 20cm in length and kept it in his bag before heading to Ms Han's workplace. He saw Ms Han from afar but felt nervous and eventually did not carry out his plan. 

The next day, Cheng left his dormitory at about 4.50pm for Ms Han's workplace. He brought his personal documents so that the police could identify him if he died. 

Video footage of the incident, consisting of montages from different sources and taken from various angles, was played in court, starting from the moment Cheng took the bus to Beach Road. 

The video, which lasted more than 12 minutes, was interrupted towards the end when Cheng - wearing a purple jumpsuit in the dock - let out a loud wail and began making gagging noises. 

The judge called for a 10-minute standdown and court proceedings were halted as Cheng doubled over and continued to sob. He later spoke with his lawyer and appeared to regain his composure.  

THE ATTACK

 At about 5.18pm on Apr 14, 2022, Cheng arrived at Ms Han's workplace. Shocked to see him, Ms Han told him to speak to her at the back lane. 

There, Cheng told the victim to join him at the Chinese Embassy in Singapore as he wanted to file for divorce.

He then unzipped his bag and asked her to look at their marriage certificates. This was when Ms Han saw the cleaver. 

She considered fleeing but was afraid of angering Cheng. 

Based on his exchange with her, Cheng felt that Ms Han could not be trusted to keep his wrongdoing a secret.

Inflamed, Cheng grabbed Ms Han's hair. He took out the cleaver and said in Mandarin, "If I am not living well, you should not think about living”. 

He then swung the cleaver at her, despite Ms Han's pleas to think about their children. Ms Han screamed as she tried to block the attack with her arms. 

Her screams drew bystanders, who shouted at Cheng to stop, but he kept up his assault until the cleaver blade broke from the handle. 

By then, Ms Han's left hand was nearly severed and she was sitting on the ground.  

Cheng then picked up the blade and pressed it against Ms Han's neck about eight times as she screamed. When Ms Han pushed the blade away, Cheng kicked her in the back. 

When Cheng was distracted by bystanders, Ms Han fled into the lobby of a nearby hotel. 

Cheng lost sight of her and decided to kill himself. He cut his left wrist a few times before throwing the blade onto the ground. 

He then entered the kitchen of the steamboat bar and grabbed another cleaver. 

He eventually found Ms Han in the hotel lobby. She tried to escape, but tripped and fell near a car. 

A bystander tried to intervene by using a ladder to hold Cheng off, but this did not deter Cheng for long. 

Cheng continued his assault by slashing Ms Han on the thigh and her lower body. He rushed at a bystander who tried to intervene and fled after bystanders continued flinging objects at him. 

Undeterred, Cheng returned shortly after to look for the victim, who had run into the hotel again. He also rushed at another bystander who held a metal sign, forcing the man to run away. 

Cheng eventually returned to the steamboat restaurant, slitting his neck and wrists along the way. 

Minutes later, he transferred 40,000 yuan to his son and 20,000 yuan to his elder brother via WeChat before damaging his mobile phone with the cleaver. 

Police who arrived at about 5.39pm fired a TASER device at Cheng, who refused to comply with instructions to lie down. 

Cheng was finally subdued, and both he and Ms Han were then sent to hospital. 

Ms Han suffered extensive injuries, which required multiple surgeries and procedures. These include deep lacerations across her body, open fractures and amputation of her ring finger. 

She no longer has sight in her left eye and her upper limbs are permanently partially impaired. Her face has also been permanently disfigured. 

In her victim impact statement, Ms Han said she had suicidal thoughts following the incident as she did not want to be a burden to her family. 

It took her one and a half years to recover and to adjust her lifestyle to her incapacities. 

For months after the attack, she feared knives and men wearing caps and blue face masks. 

While Ms Han initially received help in the form of donations from organisations, she stopped attending follow-up medical appointments as she could not afford the bills. 

Cheng was assessed at the Institute of Mental Health and was found to have no mental disorder at the time of the offences. 

While stressed and troubled, he did not demonstrate substantial depressive or anxious symptoms in the period leading up to the offences. 

Cheng's account of the circumstances showed he had planned the encounter and had the capacity to control his actions. 

The report found his actions likely to be motivated by a sense of vengeance against the victim.

The prosecution urged the court to jail Cheng for life and impose eight to 12 strokes of the cane. 

Cheng's lawyers Johannes Hadi and Wei Ziqiang, who were appointed pro bono, argued for 15 years' jail and five strokes of the cane.  

Acknowledging the serious harm caused to the victim, the lawyers sought to compare Cheng's case to previous cases to show that the harm caused was not significantly greater.

The lawyers said that the principal mitigating factor in Cheng's case was his early plea of guilt, which spared Ms Han the trauma of testifying and being cross-examined. 
 
They also highlighted Cheng's clean record, adding that he would likely be repatriated at the end of his sentence.

"We do not suggest that either point amounts to an independent mitigating factor. 

"However, we humbly pray that this honourable court consider them in the overall assessment: his clean record suggests this was an isolated incident arising out of emotional collapse rather than entrenched criminality, and his removal from the jurisdiction reduces the relevance of specific deterrence," the lawyers said. 

For attempted murder which caused hurt, an offender can be jailed for life and caned.