KUALA LUMPUR: For the last 10 years, 67-year-old Cheong Kah Pin has been travelling twice a month to Singapore from his home in Johor in the wee hours of the morning, just to visit his son in prison there.
He leaves his house at 2am, riding his motorcycle slowly so as to avoid traffic as "it is the safe thing to do as I am already old".
"I leave the house at 2am and ride the motorbike slowly before arriving at the petrol station opposite the prison about an hour later. I wait there until 8am when visitors are allowed in to see the prisoners.
"I am willing to wait outside for hours. Once, I fell off my motorcycle on the way to prison, but I am willing to go through all that as long as I can see my son.
"My son once told me not to visit him again, but I said it's okay because I still want to see his face," he says in a video posted by 8World News.
Kah Pin said his eldest son, Chun Yin, 43, was sentenced to life imprisonment for smuggling heroin into Singapore.
"My son was instructed by his employer to bring gold bars into Singapore. He was overly-trusting and my son, who was then 24, did not suspect anything or check the package he was carrying.
"When arrested, my son did not know that he was carrying drugs. I do not believe he smuggled drugs and was very sad when he was (at first) sentenced to death," he said.
Kah Pin had to sell three of his houses to appoint a lawyer as he did not have enough money.
Chun Yin's sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment with 15 lashes of the rotan.
Kah Pin hopes that light will be shed on his son's case next year because his sentence will be reviewed for clemency by the Singapore Home Ministry.
Chun Yin has been in prison since 2008 when he was arrested in Changi International Airport.
