Maid Given Life Sentence in 2023 Gets Reduced Jail Term of 17 Years

Murder charge amended to culpable homicide on appeal due to grave provocation by victim

- Selina Lum

A domestic worker who was given life imprisonment in 2023 for murdering her employer's mother-in-law was sentenced to 17 years' jail on a reduced charge of culpable homicide by the Court of Appeal on Aug 26.

Zin Mar Nwe, 24, had stabbed the victim 26 times on June 25, 2018, after the 70-year-old woman threatened to send her back to the agent.

The helper from Myanmar was 17 years old at the time, although her passport falsely stated that she was 23, the minimum age for working as a domestic worker in Singapore.

At her appeal hearing on May 14, the court amended the murder charge to one of culpable homicide not amounting to murder after accepting the argument by her lawyers that she had been provoked at the time of the killing.

In sentencing her on Aug 26, the court said it was satisfied that the provocation was grave and sudden as the elderly woman's "single verbal utterance" represented a threat to the maid's employment and livelihood.

This threat was amplified by the maid's youth, immaturity, financial vulnerability, family circumstances and prior acts of physical abuse inflicted on her by the mother-in-law, said the court.