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Singapore welcomes FBI evidence on US scientist's death
by Staff Writers
Singapore (AFP) March 12, 2013


Singapore on Tuesday said it welcomed any independent evidence from US investigators on the mysterious death of an American scientist found hanged in the city-state last year.

The parents of Shane Todd have raised suspicions he was murdered in his Singapore flat as a result of his role in a high-tech research project said to have involved a Chinese telecoms giant seen as a threat to US security.

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) said it had had "several discussions" with the FBI and both agencies were sharing information to ensure a thorough investigation of the case.

"As part of its investigation, the SPF will also take into account any information and evidence that the FBI may independently gather," it said in a statement.

Singapore police earlier asked the FBI to examine evidence in the possession of Todd's family.

The police findings will be submitted to a coroner's inquiry, which will determine the cause of the electronics engineer's death.

Todd was winding up a stint with a state-linked research institute in Singapore and preparing to return to the United States when he died in June 2012 at the age of 31.

"At the coroner's inquiry, the Todd family may pose relevant questions, through a counsel or by themselves, to the witnesses about the investigation findings, and the forensic and medical reports," the police added.

No date has been set for the coroner's inquest -- a process routinely applied to suspected suicide cases and violent deaths -- but court officials said the Todd case would be mentioned in a closed-door hearing on March 26.

The court mention is a prelude to an inquest, court sources said.

Todd's parents dispute a Singaporean autopsy report that he committed suicide, saying they found computer files linking their son's work to China's Huawei Technologies, which denies involvement in the project.

The story first generated attention after the Financial Times reported in February that Todd's parents suspected he may have been killed in his flat, where they found an external hard drive with work-related data files.

The newspaper said he was working on an advanced amplifier using gallium nitride (GaN), a tough semiconductor material, and that the technology could have military as well as commercial applications.

Huawei has told AFP it was approached by Todd's former employer, Singapore's Institute of Microelectronics (IME), but "we decided not to accept, and consequently do not have any cooperation with IME related to GaN".

A US congressional committee last year labelled Huawei and ZTE, another Chinese telecom firm, as potential national security threats that should be barred from government contracts and from acquiring US firms.

Earlier Tuesday, the foreign ministry said Singapore's ambassador to Washington met separately on March 5 with Todd's parents and two senators from Montana, their home state, to assure them that the death would be thoroughly investigated.

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