A Bangladeshi migrant has been sentenced to death by a Singapore court on Monday for killing his girlfriend.
Ahmed Salim, 31, worked as a painter in Singapore.
A migrant was sentenced to death after he was found guilty of murdering his Indonesian girlfriend, The Strait Times reported.
The court had earlier heard that Salim and Nurhidayati started a relationship in May 2012. They later agreed to get married in December 2018.
However, Nurhidayati also started seeing another Bangladeshi migrant Shamin Shamizur Rahman in mid-2018.
Salim then confronted Nurhidayati after suspecting that she was cheating on him, and she admitted to dating another man.
He subsequently asked his mother to help him look for a wife. She found one and arrangements were made for his wedding to take place in February 2019 in Bangladesh.
But a few months later, Salim and Nurhidayati reconciled and resumed dating each other.
However, they quarreled over her infidelity and on one occasion, while they were in a hotel room, Ahmed pressed a towel over her mouth. He let go after she started struggling.
Sometime in late 2018, Nurhidayati began talking to another Bangladeshi migrant Hanifa Mohammad Abu on Facebook.
She later told Hanifa that she was in a relationship with Salim and promised that she would make a clean break with him.
On December 9, 2018, Nurhidayati told Salim that she had a new boyfriend and that he should return to Bangladesh for his arranged marriage.
While she told him during a meeting on December 23 that year that she would continue seeing him, she later broke up with him over a phone call.
Deputy Public Prosecutor Hay Hung Chun told the court earlier that Salim repeatedly threatened to kill Nurhidayati if she did not end her relationship with Hanifa.
"When the deceased refused, the accused brutally strangled her with a towel around her neck in a room at the Golden Dragon Hotel in Geylang, Singapore on the evening of December 30, 2018," said the Hung Chun.
Nurhidayati's body was found at about 10.15pm that day by a hotel receptionist. Singapore police arrested Salim on December 31, 2018.
Breaking down in tears multiple times during his testimony in court earlier, Ahmed had said he had been angry with the woman for repeatedly cheating on him but that he loved her and had been able to let it go.
On Monday, Judicial Commissioner Mavis Chionh convicted Salim of a charge of murder, which carries the mandatory death penalty.
Chionh found that Salim had decided to kill Nurhidayati even before December 30, 2018, so long as she refused to leave her new boyfriend and get back with him.
The judge also noted the statements Salim made to the police in which he admitted he had decided to kill her.
Salim’s lawyers said that their client is intending to appeal the court’s decision.
