Pulau Senang prison riots

Pulau Senang prison riots

Daniel Dutton, one of the victims killed during the Pulau Senang riots
Date	12 July 1963
Location	Pulau Senang, Singapore
Outcome	58 rioters charged with murder in a 64-day jury trial 18 found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1964 18 found guilty of rioting with deadly weapons and sentenced to three years' jail 11 found guilty of rioting and sentenced to two years' jail 11 found not guilty of all charges and acquitted 18 murder convicts executed by hanging at Changi Prison in 1965
Deaths	Daniel Stanley Dutton Arumugam Veerasingham Tan Kok Hian Chok Kok Hong
Non-fatal injuries	Several others
Convicted	Tan Kheng Ann and 17 others (murder) 18 people (rioting with dangerous weapons) 11 people (rioting)
Verdict	Guilty
Convictions	Murder Rioting with dangerous weapons Rioting
Sentence	Death penalty (murder) Three years' imprisonment (rioting with dangerous weapons) Two years' imprisonment (rioting)

Part of a series on the
History of Singapore
Early history (pre-1819) Srivijaya 650–1377 Temasek, Long Ya Men, Ban Zu c.14th century Kingdom of Singapura 1299–1398 Malacca Sultanate 1400–1511 Johor Sultanate 1528-1819
British colonial era (1819–1942) Founding 1819–1826 Straits Settlements 1826–1867 Crown colony 1867–1942
Japanese Occupation (1942–1945) Fall of Singapore 1942 Sook Ching 1942 Double Tenth incident 1943
Post-war period (1945–1962) First Legislative Council 1948–1951 Maria Hertogh riots 1950 Second Legislative Council 1951–1955 Anti-National Service Riots 1954
Internal self-government (1955–1963) Hock Lee bus riots 1955 Pulau Senang prison riots 1963
Merger with Malaysia (1963–1965) Singaporean referendum 1962 Operation Coldstore 1963 Race riots in Singapore 1964 MacDonald House bombing 1965
Republic of Singapore (1965–present) ASEAN Declaration (ASEAN) 1967 1969 race riots of Singapore 1969 Singaporean haze crisis 1972–present Laju incident 1974 Operation Spectrum 1987 1997 Asian financial crisis 1997 Embassies attack plot 2001 SARS outbreak 2003 H1N1 pandemic 2009-2010 Little India riot 2013 2018 North Korea–United States Singapore Summit 2018 COVID-19 pandemic 2020–present
By topic Timeline Riots Military
Singapore portal
v t e

The Pulau Senang riots was a case of armed rioting and murder that happened at the Singaporean island of Pulau Senang, where a reformative prison settlement was operated by the government of Singapore to imprison and rehabilitate secret society members, as well as to avoid prison overcrowding at Changi Prison. The settlement first opened in 1960, and had seen bouts of success in reforming many gang members and allowing them to rejoin society.

On 12 July 1963, about 70 to 90 out of the island prison's 300 detainees staged an uprising, resulting in a riot that devastated the whole settlement and killed four prison officers - consisting of Prisons Superintendent Daniel Stanley Dutton, and three of Dutton's assistants Chok Kok Hong (植国雄 Zhí Guóxióng), Tan Kok Hian (陈国贤 Chén Guóxián) and Arumugam Veerasingham. Several others, including prison officers and some of the detainees who refused to join the riot, were also injured. At the end of the riots, police reinforcements and the Police Coast Guard arrived at Pulau Senang to arrest the rioters, with 71 of them being charged with murder.

In an unprecedented 64-day trial ever conducted in the history of both Malaysia and Singapore, 59 rioters were brought to trial for four charges of murder, with both a special jury of seven and the veteran judge Murray Buttrose set to hear the case. Eventually, eighteen of the defendants, including the ringleader Tan Kheng Ann (alias Robert Black; 陈庆安 Chén Qìngān) were sentenced to hang for the murders while another 29 rioters were jailed between two and three years for both rioting and aggravated rioting with deadly weapons, and the remaining twelve defendants were acquitted of all charges.