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Prosecutors said the trio were acting on orders from the brains behind the job, Arsan Krishnasamy Govindarajoo, 40, and Ragu Ramajayam, 37. Ragu, Mr Wan's colleague who provided inside information about the cargo, is serving a 4 1/2-year jail term. Arsan who hatched the plan but was not at the scene of the assault, was sentenced to 16-1/2 years' jail and 24 strokes of the cane for abetting others to commit armed robbery as well as dealing in stolen goods. Nakamuthu, Vijay and Samson went on trial in October last year on a joint charge of murder. Yesterday, Justice Tay Yong Kwang found that the prosecution had proved the charge against the trio beyond a reasonable doubt. The prosecution had called 98 witnesses to testify. Police statements given by the trio were also used as evidence against them. The court heard that in May 2006, Ragu and Arsan plotted to rob a lorry full of cellphones. Arsan recruited Nakamuthu, an odd-job labourer, to carry out the robbery. Nakamuthu, in turn, roped in Vijay and Samson, both national servicemen who had gone absent without official leave. On May 25, the trio stole a baseball bat from a car workshop. Four days later, they discussed the robbery with Arsan, the court heard. On May 30, armed with information provided by Ragu, the trio lay in wait along Changi Coast Road and staged an accident with Mr Wan's truck. After Mr Wan alighted, he was repeatedly assaulted with the bat by Nakamuthu. His limp body was then dumped onto the floorboard of his lorry. At a carpark in Pasir Ris, the trio transferred the cargo from Mr Wan's lorry to their own truck. A passer-by eventually found Mr Wan and called the police. He was taken to Changi General Hospital, but never regained consciousness and died six days later, on June 5. An autopsy found that Mr Wan, 46, suffered at least 15 blows to his head and other parts of the body. In court, Vijay, defended by Mr Singa Retnam, denied that there was any plan to assault Mr Wan. Samson, defended by Mr Subhas Anandan, claimed he did not know of the robbery plan and was roped in at the last minute. Nakamuthu, defended by Mr Mohd Muzammil, claimed that he had been provoked into assaulting Mr Wan as the lorry driver was behaving aggressively. But Deputy Public Prosecutor Amarjit Singh argued that the trio had agreed to assault Mr Wan to eliminate any resistance he might put up and to prevent him from identifying them.
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