SINGAPORE – A police officer who unlawfully accessed his workplace computer systems and shared his findings with a friend was sentenced to a year and four months’ jail on July 2.
Shivasuria Maniam Kesaval, 29, was a Traffic Police (TP) investigation officer at the time of the offences, and his friend, Brayden Ong Ying Shan, 25, was the subject of a police report.
Ong later made a death threat against the woman who had reported him to the authorities.
After a trial, Shivasuria was convicted of four counts of misusing a computer system and one count of an offence under the Official Secrets Act (OSA).
District Judge Lim Tse Haw also found Ong guilty of criminal intimidation and an offence under the OSA.
On July 2, Deputy Public Prosecutor Jeremy Bin told the court that Ong had fled the country by boat on June 2 following his conviction. There is now a warrant of arrest against him.
A review on the matter will take place on July 14.
In an earlier statement, the police said that Shivasuria was suspended in August 2022.
During the trial, the DPP told the court that the two offenders had been friends since 2019 and Ong knew about Shivasuria’s job.
The court heard that a woman who was in a relationship with Ong later told the authorities that he had been driving without a licence.
On July 12, 2022, two other TP officers, who were Shivasuria’s colleagues, ambushed Ong following her tip-off.
Ong’s car was towed to an impound lot, and he called Shivasuria to inform him about what had happened.
Shivasuria then accessed the Ministry of Home Affairs’ computer systems and performed searches between July 14 and 26, 2022, said the DPP.
Court documents stated that through these searches, he uncovered information including the woman’s personal particulars and the original report she had made against Ong.
Shivasuria also repeatedly met Ong during this period.
The DPP said that Shivasuria had also told Ong when the first incident report was made, and Ong used this information to correctly deduce that the woman was the one who had alerted the authorities.
The prosecutor added: “On July 15, 2022, (Ong told the woman) that he would ‘murder’ whoever reported him to the police and sent (her) a photograph of Shivasuria while telling (her), ‘I got a TP friend that is high ranking’.
“(Ong further instructed the woman) to provide the names of her family members, insinuating that he would have Shivasuria perform checks on them to see if they were the culprits.”
The woman lodged a police report in late July 2022.
On July 2, the DPP urged the court to sentence Shivasuria to a year and seven months’ jail, adding that he had not shown any remorse.
Shivasuria, who was not represented by a lawyer, had earlier submitted his written mitigation, but it was not read out in court. He told the judge that he had nothing else to add.
