TOP VILLAINS

Last week, we featured the heroes from our pages who made '08 great. But while there were many heroes, there were also those who behaved badly - from a terrorist escape artist to cheats to ungracious Singaporeans.
Today, The New Paper brings you the people you'd love to hate in '08.
MAS SELAMAT KASTARI

The terrorist broke out of the Internal Security Department's (ISD) Whitley Road Detention Centre on 27 Feb.

The audacious jailbreak led to an islandwide manhunt, put the whole country on security alert, and dealt a severe blow to Singapore's reputation.


The former Jemaah Islamiah chief had plotted to crash a hijacked plane into Changi Airport in 2002.

The most wanted man in Singapore is still on the run, but Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng has vowed in an interview with Lianhe Zaobao that he will eventually be caught.



ROGUE EMPLOYERS

They treat their foreign workers shabbily - not paying them wages, not giving them work, housing them in appalling conditions, and even laying hands on them.

By far the worst case of abuse involved a group of foreign workers who were crammed into a bedbug-infested dormitory in MacPherson.



SELLERS OF TROUBLED STRUCTURED PRODUCTS

When the Lehman Brothers bank collapsed in September, investors worldwide who had bought Lehman-linked products lost money.

In Singapore, nearly 10,000 retail customers in Singapore sunk $500 million into the products. Many are retirees who may lose their life savings.

Fairly or unfairly, the episode cast bank relationship managers in controversial light.



GARANG MRT AUNTY

A woman was filmed fighting with a middle-aged man on the train. It was not clear what provoked the quarrel.

She yelled at him: 'You threaten to beat us up, you threaten to snatch away the handphone.'

She claimed to be a victim.

The video was later posted on YouTube.

Instead of sympathy, her aggression - where she scolded and taunted the man incessantly in the video - turned most netizens against her.



INSENSITIVE FUNERAL MOURNERS

Some friends who attended the funeral of American pianist Michael Stanton whipped out their camera phones and took photos of the body in the casket.

Some mourners who were there were outraged.

Mr Stanton's daughter was also upset that those who snapped pictures had not sought the family's permission.



ROGUE LANDLORDS

They agree to rent their flats or rooms, but disappear after collecting deposits or advance rent, leaving their victims poorer and without a roof over their heads.

In most cases, the cheating landlords got away scot-free.



SEAT-HOGGING UNCLE

On an SBS Transit bus, an old lady asked a male passenger to remove his plastic bags of food from a vacant seat so she could sit.

But the old man refused and launched into an angry tirade, at one point even asking her to 'go and die'.

His rant created such a ruckus that the bus that the bus driver had to stop for 10 minutes to intervene.

Undeterred, the angry old man challenged the bus driver to make a police report.



SUNTEC CITY 'SHEIKH'

Mr Kadim Kherbeet Abdullatif, 42, claimed to be a wealthy sheikh from the UAE with business dealings worth billions.

He ran his 'business' out of a Suntec City office, but never paid his landlord the $50,000 in rent he owed. Several of his employees lodged a report with the Manpower Ministry over salary arrears.

It turned out Mr Kadim was not even a UAE citizen. Born in Basra, Iraq, he was arrested in Abu Dhabi in 2004 for various fraud-related crimes and was jailed for three months.



SELFISH GAWKERS

Singaporean Dominic Chan, 44, lay dying on the North-South Highway in Malaysia after he had crashed his motorcycle into an overturned lorry.

Instead of helping him, more than 10 onlookers stood watching from the sidelines.

Some even whipped out their handphones to take pictures of the accident scene.