BY KHUSHWANT SINGH

A MAN smuggled 302 birds into the country in suchdismal conditions that more than two-thirds of themdied. He was fined a total of $18,000 yesterday.

Site engineer Winston Boo Kiang Cheng smuggledthe ornamental birds – which are prized by collec-tors – into Singapore in his car, after buying themfrom a pet shop in Johor Baru.

He was fined $8,000 for bringing them in withouta licence issued by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Au-thority (AVA), $5,000 for causing the birds unneces-sary suffering by confining them in tiny containers,and a further $5,000 for not providing them withfood and water.

A district court heard that Boo, 38, drove into Jo-hor Baru on Oct 31 last year with his friend KohKwang Hu. After dinner, he left his companion at therestaurant, saying he was going to get his carwashed. He then visited a nearby pet shop to order300 birds. Delivery was planned for the followingnight.

Boo asked Mr Koh, 40, to go to Johor with himagain the next day, saying he wanted to fill his carwith petrol there.

While the pair were having dinner at the same res-taurant, the pet shop owner approached Boo.

The engineer paid RM558 (S$230) for the birds –253 spotted munia, 48 oriental white-eye songbirdsand one rumped sharma.

They had been stuffed into small trays and cages,a narrow plastic pipe and two cardboard toilet-paperrolls.

The cages were discovered covered with blackcloth in the boot of Boo’s car during a routine searchat the Woodlands Checkpoint. More birds werefound hidden under the rear passenger seat.

The case was then referred to the AVA, and itsofficers observed that there was no food or water forthe birds.

Several of the oriental white-eye songbirds weredying, while many of the munia birds were in verybad shape. By Nov 4, 227 of the birds had died.

Boo admitted to AVA officers that he had smug-gled the birds from Malaysia because they werecheaper there.

Songbird hatchlings go for about $10 to $20 eachat pet shops here.

AVA prosecutor Yap Teck Chuan told the courtthat ornamental birds can be imported only fromcountries that are free of bird flu. Even then, thebirds must be tested for the disease and quarantinedfor three weeks.

Malaysia has been designated free of bird flu, butMr Yap said that wild birds are often caught and trad-ed as ornamental or pet birds. These could originatefrom anywhere, and importing them without anytesting or health certification poses a significanthealth risk, he explained.

He also said that Singapore was one of the fewcountries in the region to have kept bird flu at bay,and that strict import and quarantine regulationsand enforcement are required to maintain this statusquo.

For smuggling in the birds and causing them un-necessary pain and suffering, Boo could have beenfined up to $10,000, jailed for up to a year, or both,for each offence.

Boo brought in 302 birds after buying them from a pet shopin Johor Baru. They were found in his car during a search atWoodlands Checkpoint. ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN

FOUR young lawyers engaged in a war of wordsover a case of breach of contract in the finals ofa mooting competition in the Supreme Court au-ditorium last night.

After an intense verbal battle that lastedalmost two hours, Drew & Napier’s Mr PardeepSingh Khosa and Mr Mahesh Rai, both 28, weredeclared the winners by a judging panel compris-ing Attorney-General Sundaresh Menon, JusticeSteven Chong and former Hong Kong attorney-general Michael Thomas.

Runners-up were Mr Kevin Ong, 25, and MrLau Kah Hee, 28, from WongPartnership.

The quartet was among 22 lawyers from sev-en local law firms, the Justices’ Clerks of the Su-preme Court and the Attorney-General’s Cham-bers who participated in the competition. It wasorganised by Britain’s Essex Court Chambersand the English-Speaking Union and supportedby the Singapore Academy of Law.

The participants were all under 30 years oldand had been in practice for three years or less.

While a national mooting competition hasbeen organised in Britain for 40 years, yester-day’s finals marked the conclusion of the inaugu-ral contest here. It began in November last year.

The four finalists were given up to 20 min-utes to make their representations before thejudges and were assessed on four criteria, includ-ing their strategies and abilities to rebut their op-ponents’ arguments.

Mr Menon, who chaired the judging panel,said they were impressed by the energy levels ofthe finalists and lauded their ability to presenttheir arguments without referring to a script.

Mr Thomas, a member of the Essex CourtChambers, gave real-life tips to the finalists.

He said: “Make sure the judges are actuallylistening to what you are saying... See whetherthey nod, smile or shake their heads becausethat should trigger you immediately to try toreact... and bring them back to your point.”

LIN WENJIAN

Engineer who smuggledbirds from JB fined $18,000

THREE men were arrested yesterday in connectionwith the theft of 70 industrial cooking pots worthabout $20,000.

Police said the men – aged between 25 and 27 –were former employees of Cahaya Timur Cateringand Rental Services, the firm where the pots werestolen from.

When the management of Cahaya Timur disco-vered that the pots were missing from their ware-house located in Ang Mo Kio Industrial Park 1 onThursday, they immediately suspected that it wasan inside job.

“It must be an organised thing,” said firm manag-er Hashmat Ali. No one apart from current andformer employees would know how to gain entry totheir premises, he added.

Former employees were later called in and askedif they knew anything about the missing pots.

The three suspects owned up and were immedi-ately arrested.

The large metal pots, which are used for masscooking, are worth around $300 each. The compa-ny believes they were sold for scrap metal for about$10 to $20 a kilo.

Mr Jaman Rudin, the owner of Cahaya Timur,said he had known the three suspects for about 10years. He now plans to beef up security at the ware-house by installing CCTV cameras and buying bet-ter locks.

The Straits Times understands that the policeare still looking for two other employees to assist intheir investigations.

If found guilty of theft, the suspects may be im-prisoned for up to 10 years.

CHERIE THIO & AMELIA TAN HUI FANG

BY MELISSA PANG

THE H5N1 virus may have claimed twolives in China and Indonesia but there isno cause for undue alarm, say leading in-fectious disease specialists.

Bird-to-human transmissions remainthe predominant form, while the hu-man-to-human type is not only rare butalso causes infections that are very mild.

Professor Seto Wing-Hong, director ofthe World Health Organisation’s Collabo-

rating Centre for Infection Control inHong Kong, said that during the 1997 avi-an flu outbreak, health workers therewere required to report any contact madewith patients.

Data showed that only five out of 965medical staff who reported having suchcontact came down with the ailment.

Even so, their infections were not un-like the common cold or flu, said Prof Se-to.

He added that for effective human-

to-human transmission to occur, severalgenes in the virus need to mutate at thesame time, and it is very rare for such acomplex process to happen.

“But does it mean we don’t care? Weshould still take basic precautions but weshouldn’t become scared every day. Goodhygiene, such as washing hands and tak-ing leave when sick, should also be prac-tised,” he said, adding that Hong Kong’s18 avian flu cases in 1997 were caused bybird-to-human transmission.

Last month, the Ministry of Health(MOH) said Singapore’s risk from theH5N1 strain of bird flu virus is very low,as no human cases have been reported inHong Kong recently.

Prof Seto was among the experts who

spoke to reporters on the sidelines of the25th East Asian Medical Students’ Confer-ence 2012 at the National University ofSingapore yesterday.

In a speech, Health Minister Gan KimYong, guest of honour at the event, saidSingapore’s foremost defence against out-breaks is pandemic preparedness.

There are several initiatives here todeal with outbreaks, he added, includinga public health intelligence unit which de-tects changes in the infectious diseaselandscape both here and overseas, a child-hood immunisation programme and $300million worth of infectious disease re-search over the past decade.

Besides increasing the number of spe-cialists, Tan Tock Seng Hospital’s Com-municable Disease Centre (CDC) will alsobe expanded.

Associate Professor Leo Yee Sin, headof the CDC, said it had a history stretch-ing back more than 100 years, and it was“timely that the current facility be up-graded to a state-of-the-art isolation andtreatment centre”.

She added: “Confronting the rapidlyevolving nature of infectious diseases, ca-pacity-building is not restricted to abuilding of physical structure. Of equalimportance... is the emphasis on the

building up of infectious disease exper-tise, to provide the best level of care.”

In the case of avian flu, Professor Jere-my Farrar, who specialises in tropicalmedicine and is director of Oxford Univer-sity’s Clinical Research Unit in Ho ChiMinh City in Vietnam, said the number ofinfections needed to be noted in context.

He said: “From 1997 to 2012, therehave been fewer than 600 cases of birdflu in a population at risk of about two orthree billion people. Your chance of con-tracting bird flu is tiny.

“A sense of perspective is crucial fromthe public as well as the research and sci-entific community.”

He added that due to improved vigi-lance, the odd case of infection will sur-face only every now and then.

The five-day conference, organised bymedical undergraduates of the NUS YongLoo Lin School of Medicine for the firsttime, gathered about 350 Asia-Pacific par-ticipants to discuss ways to deal with in-fectious diseases in the region.

A White Paper consolidating views ofthe delegates on national epidemic plan-ning and how medical students can be in-volved in epidemic preparedness will besubmitted to MOH.

melpang@sph.com.sg

Mr Hashmat Ali said that no one apart from current and former employees of Cahaya Timur Catering and Rental Serviceswould know how to gain entry to the company’s premises. ST PHOTO: TED CHEN

Human-to-human infection rare andmild, but good hygiene still important

Drew & Napierlawyers winmooting contest

Stolen: 70 pots worth $20,000

No need for panicover bird flu: Experts

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THE STRAITS TIMES TUESDAY, JANUARY 17 2012 PAGE B10