‘One-eyed Dragon’ tells his side of the story

IN A testimony peppered with glimpses of underworld dealings, accused gunman Tan Chor Jin yesterday gave his side of the story in the fatal shooting of his long-time friend, nightclub boss Lim Hock Soon.  

Tan, dubbed the “One-eyed Dragon,” told of how they operated an illegal horse racing and football betting ring, in which he accepted bets placed by Lim’s runners.  

By April 2004, he said, the runners had chalked up losses of RM500,000 (S$220,000) but Lim – whom he knew only by his nickname Guni Ter (“milk pig” in Hokkien) – refused to settle the debt.  

He said he discovered in 2005 that Lim had sent people to kill him.  

In July that year, Tan approached Lim about the debt and was rebuffed. Tan, who was a secret society headman before he was blinded in his right eye about eight years ago, said his “ego was hurt” by Lim’s response.  

“The more I thought about the incident, the more I got angry,” he said in a statement to the police, which was admitted in court yesterday.  

Tan contacted a friend in Thailand to get him a gun for self-defence. Later, at a Johor hotel, he handed over RM15,000 for a semi-automatic Beretta .22-calibre pistol.  

Tan, who said he had never used a gun before, now faces the death penalty for discharging a firearm with intent to physically injure Lim.  

But he insisted yesterday that he had no intention of firing six shots from the pistol after storming into Lim’s Serangoon flat on the morning of Feb 15 last year. Five of the bullets struck Lim.  

The prosecution closed its case yesterday, having called 47 witnesses over four days.  

The trial resumes today. – The Straits Times / Asia News Network