S’pore jails Australian for ‘religiously aggravated’ wine bottle killing

SINGAPORE – An Australian who threw a wine bottle from a Singapore apartment building and killed an elderly man was jailed today for five-and-a-half years over what prosecutors called a hostile act towards Muslims.

Andrew Gosling flung the bottle in 2019 from the seventh storey of a condominium towards a group of Muslims gathered in a barbecue area two floors below.

The 49-year-old, who had been drinking beer before he committed the crime, intended to startle the group but the bottle hit 73-year-old Nasiari Sunee on the head and fractured his skull.

Nasiari, a delivery driver, died in hospital, while his 69-year-old wife suffered arm injuries, according to court documents.

The city-state of 5.5 million has a mostly ethnic Chinese population but is also home to Muslim and ethnic Indian minorities, and authorities take a hard line against acts deemed to disturb ethnic and religious harmony.

Prosecutors had called for a sentence that would deter such crimes in future as Gosling’s offences were “religiously aggravated”.

“He cowardly fled the scene after throwing the bottle to evade detection, shouting crude, religiously charged invective about Muslims,” prosecutors had said during the case.

They called for the court to send “an unequivocal signal that offences that are coated with religious hostility have no place in multi-racial and multi-religious Singapore”.

Gosling told police that he was angry about Islamist militant attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali and in Melbourne that targeted Australians, court documents showed.

He was sentenced to four years in jail for causing death by a rash act and another 18 months for causing grievous hurt by a rash act.

There was no evidence that Gosling intended or knew his actions would cause death, which would have made him liable for more serious charges.

He had arrived in Singapore a month before the incident to try to find work.

The case also highlighted the dangers of so-called “killer litter” in space-starved Singapore, where most live in tower blocks.

Injuries from litter thrown from high rises are a regular hazard, and authorities have installed thousands of cameras to crack down on those responsible. – AFP, April 8, 2022