By Zaihan Mohamed Yusof

IT was a crude remark by her then-husband that sparked her friendship with the older - and bigger - man.

Madam Shirley Ee is the woman at the centre of one of Singapore's most unusual fights, which subsequently ended up in court.

It was between her ex-husband, Ker Ah Tee, and Mr Mohd Rizal Abdullah, who, according to Ker, was her lover.

On Tuesday, Ker, 45, standing all of 1.6m, was convicted of attacking the 1.8m-tall Mr Mohd Rizal, 54, with a chopper in June last year.

In an exclusive interview with The New Paper on Sunday, Madam Ee, 44, recalled the day that Ker deliberately embarrassed her in front of Mr Mohd Rizal.

The administrative assistant claimed that Ker told Mr Mohd Rizal: "Married so many years to my wife, she is like a batu (stone in Malay) in bed... She cannot perform in bed."

Ironically, this embarrassing moment sparked the start of Madam Ee's controversial friendship with the married Mr Mohd Rizal.

With tears welling in her eyes, Madam Ee said:"How can a husband say such a thing in front of a stranger? I was shocked and hurt.

"Rizal looked at me stunned. I can still remember that day."

Since then, Madam Ee said that whenever she faced a problem with Ker, she would turn to Mr Mohd Rizal and confide in him.

But isn't it odd to confide in a man in front of whom her husband had embarrassed her?

The mother of three said: "I felt that I have been shamed openly by my ex-husband, so there's nothing to hide from Rizal."

But wasn't she risking gossip by confiding in Mr Mohd Rizal? Could she have turned to someone else to share her problems? Madam Ee said she also confided in two women - her mother and aunt.

Just friends

But she insisted that Mr Mohd Rizal is and always has been just a friend and nothing more. He also testified in court that they were just friends.

With one hand clutching police reports and court documents, Madam Ee said problems at home, and not her close friendship with Mr Mohd Rizal, had pushed their marriage to the edge.

It was ironic that it was Ker who had introduced her to Mr Mohd Rizal in 2003 when the couple owned a drinks kiosk at Downtown East.

Mr Mohd Rizal was then helping out at his cousin's restaurant.

Sometimes when the restaurant closed early, he would go over to chat with Ker and Madam Ee.

Occasionally, he would join them and their staff for supper at a nearby 24-hour coffee shop, Madam Ee said.

She said that her marriage was showing severe signs of strain by 2005.

She and Ker were arguing frequently and he became suspicious of her friendship with Mr Mohd Rizal.

So why did she continue to meet Mr Mohd Rizal?

The petite Madam Ee said she literally needed "a shoulder to cry on".

"On occasions when I was down and depressed, he would cheer me up and told me not to lose hope. Ultimately, Rizal advised me to focus on raising my children."

Madam Ee and Ker divorced in July 2007 but still lived together in their five-room flat in Pasir Ris, in separate rooms, while waiting for the flat to be sold.

Almost a year after the divorce, Ker and Mr Mohd Rizal fought below the flat.

Recalling the chopper attack against her friend, Madam Ee said that by then, her ex-husband had no right to be involved in her life.

"He (Mr Mohd Rizal) wanted to help me, and this was what he got in return.

"This thing has directly affected his family. If his injuries had been more severe, how would I answer (to his family)?"

During the trial, photographs of Madam Ee and Mr Mohd Rizal taken on a trip to Pulau Ubin in December 2007 with his colleagues were shown to the court.

Ker told the court that he had found five sets of photographs of her and Mr Mohd Rizal in her handphone memory card after they were divorced.

One photo showed Mr Mohd Rizal with his arms around her.

But Madam Ee insisted that the pictures were harmless and merely showed two friends sitting next to each other.

Her youngest son, who was 9 at the time, had accompanied her on the trip, she said.

So why had she locked the memory card containing these photographs in a drawer? Was she hiding snapshots of intimate moments? No, said Madam Ee. She did so because personal items like her undergarments and a thumbdrive had gone missing from her room over the years.

She showed this reporter a police report alleging that Ker had taken her handphone memory card from a locked drawer in her room in May last year.

Madam Ee said Mr Mohd Rizal was very upset when the pictures became public.

Wife and daughter

"How is his wife going to face the world? In fact, I know his wife and daughter. The photos were not incriminating and besides they were taken after we were already divorced," she said.

In court, Ker said he was heartbroken and accused Mr Mohd Rizal of breaking up his family.

Both Madam Ee and Mr Mohd Rizal denied being lovers.

Ker also testified that in 2005 he tailed his wife to Mr Mohd Rizal's flat from where she would reappear after a few hours with "wet hair".

She would return home close to midnight, he said.

Madam Ee said she has never stepped into Mr Mohd Rizal's flat.

She said: "Every time he tailed me, he could easily be spotted hiding behind pillars. Going to Rizal's flat would be the last thing I would have done knowing that I was being followed.

"Furthermore, Rizal's daughters and wife are at home at night, so how could I have done such a thing without raising any suspicion?"

Ker told the court, he saw Mr Mohd Rizal hugging his wife at Pasir Ris Park in January 2007.

Again, she insisted this never happened.

She said: "If I had done all these things, why didn't he simply take a picture with his handphone? The only reason he does not have a picture is because it never happened.

"It was all his imagination. We are friends, that's all."

This article was first published in The New Paper.