Organ transplant after execution: Singapore

A prominent Singapore businessman reportedly received a kidney transplant last Friday using an organ donated by an executed gangster.

According to The Straits Times, police confirmed former gang leader Tan Chor Jin was hanged in Changi prison on the morning of 9 January, for the 2006 shooting of a nightclub owner.

The paper reported that retail magnate Tang Wee Sung received the kidney transplant later in the day in the National University Hospital.

Tan, 42, was executed about two weeks after his appeal for presidential clemency was rejected in the last week of December.

Singapore's president has granted clemency only six times since the country since independence in 1965.

Singapore newspapers reported in the days before Tan's execution that he had told his wife and mistress he wanted to donate his organs after his death.

Tan, 42, was convicted in May 2007 of discharging a firearm, which carries a mandatory death penalty.

The High Court was told he entered nightclub operator Lim Hock Soon's flat on the morning of 15 February, 2006, ordering him to tie up his wife, daughter and their maid. Tan fired six rounds from a pistol, hitting Lim five times and killing him instantly.

He was arrested in a hotel raid by Malaysian police after he fled to Kuala Lumpur.

The High Court rejected his defence arguments that he had been drunk, the shots were fired accidentally and he had acted in self-defence after Mr Lim threw a chair at him.

Tan discharged his lawyer and represented himself during his trial, but he was represented in his appeal by criminal lawyers Subhas Anandan and Sunil Sudheesan.

He was referred to by the media as a triad gang leader and the 'One-eyed Dragon' because he was blind in his right eye.

The New Paper claimed in 2006 that Tan was hired by a Malaysian crime syndicate to kill Lim in a dispute over gambling winnings.

Tang was jailed for a day and fined $17,000 in 2008 in the country's first organ trading case, after he was convicted of trying to buy a kidney from an Indonesian.

In the previous reported execution, Singapore hanged Mohammed Ali Johari on 19 December 2008 for the murder of his 2-year-old stepdaughter.