Belgian man killed son, then crashed car in suicide bid, court told

Facing mounting pressure in a battle with his estranged French wife over custody of their five-year old son, a Belgian expatriate suffocated the boy by placing a cushion over his head and pressing it down, the High Court heard yesterday. As banker Philippe Marcel Guy Graffart cradled Keryan Gabriel Cedric Graffart's motionless body in his arms, crying, he told him that he loved him and was going to join him.

The 42-year old left his apartment in Leedon Heights and sped along the Marina Coastal Expressway (MCE) before deliberately crashing his car into the wall of the tunnel. He removed his seat belt just before crashing but the car's airbags were deployed and, although he temporarily became unconscious, he survived.

Details surrounding the killing of five-year old Keryan at the d'Leedon condominium on October 5^th last year emerged when Graffart pleaded guilty to a charge of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, admitting that he had caused the boy's death at his 32^nd-storey apartment between 9:00pm and 10:17pm. At 10:41pm, he deliberately tried to kill himself, but failed. He was taken to Singapore General Hospital with minor injuries.

There, he called the police and said he had tried to kill himself. The officer told him to wait, but he left the hospital, took a taxi and returned to his apartment. He contemplated - and decided against - other means of suicide, such as jumping off his balcony and stabbing himself, before going to the Bukit Timah Neighbourhood Police Centre at about 4:30am on October 6^th.