the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal based on the majority decision in October 1996, with two judges - Justice Karthigesu and Justice Goh - upholding the decision of the High Court while Justice Thean dissented. This marked the first time a split decision was made in an appeal regarding a murder case in the Court of Appeal. Aftermath Abdul Nasir's kidnapping trial and landmark appeal The conclusion of the murder trial did not mark an end to Abdul Nasir's ordeal, as he had to go back to court to face a kidnapping charge, which he committed during the time of his remand. On 3 February 1996, Abdul Nasir, together with his cellmate and drug trafficker Low Theng Gee (who was later executed on 7 July 1997 for drug trafficking) briefly kidnapped two police officers for a ransom of a car, two guns, money and eight bullets before being subdued by the police reinforcements. Under Singapore law, kidnapping (with the intent of ransoming the victim) carries a sentence of either life imprisonment or death (the offender would also be liable for caning if he was not sentenced to death). Once again, Abdul Nasir engaged his original lawyer Subhas Anandan for his defence. Abdul Nasir stood trial alone, as by the time he was convicted in the Oriental Hotel case, the co-perpetrator, Low Theng Gee had been sentenced and incarcerated on death row for his drug trafficking offence. In his memoir, Anandan revealed that there were initially two more prisoners, who were being remanded for illegal possession of firearms, joining in to help Abdul Nasir and his accomplice to kidnap the police officers but they later backed out at the last moment. Anandan would, coincidentally, represent one of them in an unrelated case. Abdul Nasir was found guilty of kidnapping on 3 March 1997. On the same day of Abdul Nasir's conviction itself, and despite the urgings of the prosecution to sentence Abdul Nasir to death, High Court judge T. S. Sinnathuray sentenced Abdul Nasir to life imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane, given the fact that it was Low Theng Gee who masterminded the kidnapping plot and took it upon himself to demand a ransom, and that Abdul Nasir neither harmed nor threatened the lives of the hostages. However, Justice Sinnathuray ordered that the life sentence should run consecutively with the 18-year imprisonment sentence which Abdul Nasir received for