THE young couple were making their way out of the zoo at about 3pm.

'Hi, can I check what time you arrived at the zoo,' this reporter asked innocuously.

'Oh, we were here quite early,' the woman replied.

'Did you happen to hear about...' this reporter continued, but stopped when the woman gave a knowing look.

'Yes, but I don't know if we want to tell you,' she said, looking disturbed.

It felt like a coup then as zoo officials had told reporters that they had yet to find any witnesses who had seen the white tigers attack and kill cleaner Nordin Montong.

We asked if they could recount the incident, but the couple, who looked to be in their 20s, were reluctant.

We pleaded with them, saying nobody seemed to know what had happened.

It was three hours after they had watched the tigers attack Mr Nordin, but they were still visibly distressed.

The tourists eventually relented, but refused to give their names.

The man appeared more willing to open up.

They had flown in from Australia the night before and it was their first visit to Singapore.

It turns out they had seen Mr Nordin not once, but twice - before and during the attack.

'We had seen him emptying some cards out of a wallet earlier,' said the man.

'He then threw the cards into the crocodile enclosure and then cycled away. He was wearing a uniform.'

The man looked agitated, he said, and was shouting words in another language (Malay, it was later confirmed).

The couple had seen Mr Nordin at the Treetops Walk near the zoo's entrance earlier.

Minutes later, while at the White Tiger exhibit, they heard a splash and were surprised to see Mr Nordin in there with a broom and a bucket.

The woman said: 'At first, we were wondering if he had done this before. We thought it was something official.'

They saw Mr Nordin wade towards the tigers and climb up on to a rock ledge. By then, the tigers became aware of his presence.

'They were crouching and walking towards him. The biggest tiger got there first,' the man said. 'But the guy sort of let himself be checked out by the tigers.'

They said that when the tigers knocked him down, the man lay in a foetal position and put the bucket over his head.

What they saw next was just too gruesome to be retold.They said they were in shock for a while, and sat down for half an hour after the incident and had a drink.

They then resumed their tour of the zoo. Looking grim, the man said: 'We tried to look at cuter animals.'

Asked if they had taken any pictures, the couple said no, and started to walk away.

They then agreed to talk to the police.

At a conference room in the zoo's office, they were interviewed by the police and zoo officials for more than an hour.

As it turns out, the couple had video footage of the attack and surrendered it to the police.

This article was first published in The New Paper on November 15, 2008.