Karpal Singh

Born in Georgetown, Penang, Karpal was the son of a watchman and herdsman, Ram Singh Deo. His mother was Kartar Kaur. Karpal studied at St. Xavier's Institution and received his Bachelor of Laws degree from the National University of Singapore, where he was the president of the student union. He was barred from his hostel for protesting against the university's decision to mandate certificates of political suitability for incoming students. Karpal said he took seven years to graduate, admitting that he was "playful" and "didn't attend lectures". After failing his final-year courses, the dean made him sit at the front of his classes; according to Karpal, "I couldn't play the fool anymore and I passed my exams accordingly!" ==Legal career==

He was called to the Penang bar in 1969 and joined a firm in Alor Star, Kedah. Karpal founded his legal firm the following year, and was known for his expertise in the field of litigation. He was a pioneer in drug trafficking and habeas corpus cases, and opposed the death penalty. Karpal was praised for "defending the little man", Universiti Teknologi MARA law professor Shad Saleem Faruqi praised Karpal's legal team for their innovative interpretations, which helped defendants with difficult cases. and successfully defended at least ten foreigners on serious drug charges (which have a mandatory death sentence). Among Karpal's highest-profile cases were his defence of Australian drug trafficker Kevin Barlow, who was executed in Malaysia in 1986. Barlow and fellow Australian Brian Chambers were convicted of trafficking heroin by the High Court in Penang in July 1985, and Karpal continued fighting to clear Barlow's name after his execution. Karpal also defended New Zealanders Lorraine Cohen and her son, Aaron, against heroin-trafficking charges in 1987. They were convicted, with Lorraine sentenced to death and Aaron to life in prison. Lorraine's death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment in 1989, and both were pardoned and freed in 1996. In 1977, Karpal managed to persuade the Yang di-Pertuan Agong to pardon a 14-year-old Chinese boy who was sentenced to death for possession of a firearm under the Internal Security Act, reportedly suggesting that to let the boy hang would be "politically explosive." The sisters were later acquitted without their defence being called, and Karpal would later represent one of the two hired hitmen in his appeal in 2009, which ended with the boy, who was 17 at the time of the crime, to be convicted for murder and detained indefinitely at the Selangor Sultan's pleasure. The boy's older friend Low Kian Boon (aged 18 at the time of the murder) was sentenced to death, before the sentence was reduced to 35 years' imprisonment and 12 strokes of the cane in 2024. Karpal also took on cases outside of Malaysia's jurisdiction during his legal career. In January 1995, Karpal travelled to Singapore and represented Malaysian gunman Ng Theng Shuang in his appeal against the death sentence issued to Ng under the Arms Offences Act for discharging his firearm during a goldsmith robbery heist at Singapore's South Bridge Road. Ng's appeal was dismissed despite Karpal's arguments in the appeal, and he was hanged on 14 July 1995 in Changi Prison. Anwar Ibrahim Karpal represented former Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim during Anwar's 1998 sodomy trial. In September 1999, he produced a pathological report confirming high levels of arsenic in Anwar's body and accused authorities of poisoning him: "It could well be that someone out there wants to get rid of him ... even to the extent of murder ... I suspect people in high places are responsible for this situation." After a two-year trial, Anwar was acquitted on 10 January 2012; however, the acquittal was overturned two years later. ==Political career==

Entry into politics Karpal joined the Democratic Action Party (DAP) in 1970, citing its multiracial platform after the 1969 race riots. Although he planned to contest the 1974 general election in Penang, he withdrew after his father's death. However, Karpal was persuaded by DAP national organising secretary Fan Yew Teng to stand for the Alor Setar parliamentary seat and the Alor Setar Bandar state seat. In the 1978 general elections, Karpal won the Jelutong parliamentary seat and the Bukit Gelugor state seat. He held the Bukit Gelugor state seat until 1990, losing subsequent elections for the Sungai Pinang and Padang Kota seats. In 1989, Karpal accused Deputy Speaker D. P. Vijandran of appearing in pornographic videos. Although the allegations were dismissed due to lack of evidence, Vijandran resigned the following year. In 1992, Karpal produced the alleged videotape in parliament and gave it to Deputy Speaker Ong Tee Keat. but the conviction was overturned in 1998. In 2000, Karpal was ordered to pay Vijandran RM500,000 (reduced to RM100,000 on appeal) in damages for defamation after he accused Vijandran of cheque fraud. Setback In the 1999 election, Karpal lost the Jelutong parliamentary seat he had held for 21 years, and DAP leader Lim Kit Siang was also defeated. Despite the ruling Barisan Nasional (BN) coalition's significant losses in the election, Keadilan and PAS absorbed the gains as DAP support eroded due to suspicion of PAS and its hard-line Islamic stance. Although the DAP gained seats, the party performed well below expectations and Lim called the results a "catastrophic defeat". Despite the setback, Karpal remained as party deputy chairman and Lim became chairman after the resignation of long-serving chairman Chen Man Hin. Karpal strongly opposed a PAS plan to introduce hudud (Islamic codes of behavior) into the Terengganu state legal system in 1999, threatening to take the state government to court. Return to Parliament In the 2004 general election, Karpal returned to parliament with a 1,261-vote majority in the new Bukit Gelugor seat. The DAP regained its position as the largest opposition party in Parliament, and Karpal became the party's national chairman on 4 September 2004. On 7 September, he was sanctioned for "misleading Parliament" after claiming that MPs had to raise their right hand while they took the oath of office on 17 May. A report by the Parliamentary Rights and Privileges Committee gave Karpal three days to apologise or face a six-month suspension. He refused to apologise and served the suspension. Victories and controversy Karpal retained his seat in the 2008 election with a nearly-20-fold-vote increased majority (21,015 votes). The election saw historic gains for the opposition, who denied the ruling coalition Barisan Nasional (BN) a two-thirds majority in Parliament for the first time. The three major opposition parties formed a coalition (the Pakatan Rakyat), and Karpal was listed as the DAP representative on the coalition's Shadow Ministry of Home Affairs Committee in July 2009. In April 2010, he was suspended from parliament for ten days after he called the speaker a "dictator". In December of that year, he and opposition members of parliament Anwar Ibrahim, Azmin Ali and Sivarasa Rasiah were suspended for six months. Anwar was suspended for stirring up controversy over government links to APCO Worldwide, while the rest were punished for publicising a report by the Rights and Privileges Committee finding Anwar guilty before the report was presented to Parliament. In December 2011, Karpal and Penang second deputy chief minister P. Ramasamy feuded over Ramasamy's reported accusation that dissidents in the DAP were plotting against him for not giving them projects and favours. Karpal called Ramasamy a "warlord" and asked for him to resign as deputy chief minister. Ramasamy asked the party to remove its "godfathers", an apparent reference to Karpal. At the DAP national conference in January 2012, Karpal joined Ramasamy and asked the party's "warlords and godfathers [to] stand together against Barisan Nasional." ==Political views==

Karpal Singh cited David Saul Marshall, Mahatma Gandhi and John F. Kennedy as influences. The 13 May Incident convinced him that Malaysia needed to take a multiracial course, and he joined the DAP in 1970. Karpal praised the country's first prime minister, Tunku Abdul Rahman for promoting racial unity. Karpal Singh opposed the idea of Malaysia as an Islamic state, arguing that the constitution provided for a secular nation with Islam as the official religion, and clashed with Mahathir and fellow opposition party PAS over the issue. Karpal said "an Islamic state over my dead body" about the debate during a political speech, ==Controversies and issues==

Karpal was a controversial figure, and he and fellow DAP politician Lim Kit Siang have been referred to as racial provocateurs. He was nicknamed "the Tiger of Jelutong" by admirers after serving five terms as Jelutong MP. Karpal attributed the nickname to a confrontation with former Malaysian Indian Congress President Samy Vellu when he said to Samy, "he could be the lion, and I could be the tiger, because there are no lions in Malaysia!" Moments later, Karpal was mocked by Ibrahim Ali and Bung Moktar Radin for his inability to stand while speaking as a result of his disability (provoking a furore among opposition members). In October, Karpal was suspended from Parliament for two days for calling speaker Pandikar Amin Mulia "not serious" and "playful". Detentions He and a number of other opposition politicians were detained without trial under the Internal Security Act during Operation Lalang in October 1987 for inciting "racial tension" in Malaysia. Karpal was released for several hours in March 1988 in response to a habeas corpus application before being rearrested and imprisoned until January 1989. Amnesty International called him a prisoner of conscience. This, the only known charge of sedition in any Commonwealth country brought against a lawyer for remarks made in court in defence of a client, He was again charged under the Sedition Act in March 2009 with threatening to sue the Sultan of Perak, Sultan Azlan Shah, in the wake of the 2009 Perak constitutional crisis. Karpal had contended that the sultan had exceeded his constitutional powers in appointing Zambry Abdul Kadir Menteri Besar. The charges were dismissed in June 2010 after the High Court determined that the prosecution had failed to prove a prima facie case. However, the Court of Appeal reversed the acquittal in January 2012 and ordered Karpal to enter a defence. In March 2019, 10 years after the incident the Federal Court acquitted Karpal posthumously. ==Personal life==

Family Karpal married Gurmit Kaur, eight years his junior, in July 1970. Gurmit's family, from Narathiwat, Thailand, moved to Penang when she was seven. A car struck a taxi in which he was seated from behind, severely bruising his thoracic vertebrae. The accident left Karpal with sensory impairment and reduced motor strength, and he was unable to walk or raise his right arm more than a few centimeters. His seat in the parliamentary chamber was moved to the back row to accommodate his wheelchair. ==Death and funeral==

In the early hours of 17 April 2014, Karpal died in a car crash on the North–South Expressway E1 near Gua Tempurung, Perak. His personal assistant, Michael Cornelius, was also killed in the accident. Ramkarpal (Karpal's son and one of the minivan's five occupants) and an Indonesian maid believed to have been employed by Karpal were injured. The driver of the minivan was injured as well. Karpal's Toyota Alphard collided with the right side of a slow-moving, five-tonne Mitsubishi Canter lorry carrying cement, steel, and tiles. Although the lorry driver (identified as Abu Mansor Mohd) tested positive for cannabis, it was uncertain if he was under influence at the time of the accident. According to Bukit Aman traffic-police chief SAC Mohd Fuad Abdul Latiff, road conditions and the weather were good at the time of the accident. His body reached the Batu Gantong Crematorium, George Town, Penang at 1:35 pm and was cremated after thousands of mourners chanted his name. His son, Gobind, memorialised him on 5 May during the last of a series of tributes. ==Memorials, awards and accolades==

On 19 April 2014, two days after his death, the IJM Promenade in Lebuh Sungai Pinang was renamed Karpal Singh Drive (Persiaran Karpal Singh). The Full Biography: Karpal Singh, Tiger of Jelutong by Tim Donoghue, published in 2014 by Marshal Cavendish International, is an updated edition of Donoghue's Karpal Singh: Tiger of Jelutong which published prior to his death. Karpal received the Glory of India Award of Excellence in 2011, and was one of the top 10 NRI Newsmakers of 2008. ==Election results==

Honours of Malaysia • • Knight Grand Commander of the Order of the Defender of State (DUPN) – '''Dato' Seri Utama''' (2020; posthumously) ==See also==