S'pore's Marshall dead at 87

S'pore's Marshall dead at 87

SINGAPORE (AFP): Singapore's first chief minister and popular
criminal lawyer David Marshall died yesterday after a year-long
battle against lung cancer, officials and family members said. He
was 87.

A spokesman for the Marshall family said the cancer became
active about four months after diagnosis in August last year. He
died in his sleep, leaving his wife of 34 years, Jean, and four
children.

Ten months after he knew he had cancer, Marshall said in a
media interview published only after his death yesterday that he
was willing to take death "like a man" although he hoped to live
on for five years or more.

"I see life as a miracle of joy. I don't want to go,"
Marshall, born here to an Orthodox Jewish family from Iraq, told
The New Paper, Singapore's afternoon English daily.