Rape conviction of Singapore-based YouTuber & Wah!Banana actor overturned

SINGAPORE: One year and five months after he was found guilty, the conviction of TikToker and Wah! Banana actor Lev Panfilov has been overturned.

On Wednesday (Sep 2), the Court of Appeal acquitted 30-year-old Mr Panfilov, a Russian national and Singapore Permanent Resident, of four charges for rape, sexual assault and molestation. 

Mr Panfilov was convicted on March 21, 2025, of raping a woman he had met on the dating app Tinder. He had claimed in his defence that their encounter, which had occurred on Jan 12, 2021, had been consensual.

Two months later, he received a jail sentence of 11 and a half years, plus 12 strokes of the cane.

Justice Sushil Nair, who delivered the sentence from the Court of Appeal, noted that there had been inconsistencies in the woman’s testimony. These include her telling a doctor that she had screamed during the incident with Mr Panfilov, but later said in court that she had only tried to scream. The woman’s flatmate, who had been in the next room, heard nothing.

There was also reasonable doubt concerning the bloody underwear presented as evidence of assault, the judge added.

Johannes Hadi had led Mr Panfilov’s team of appeal lawyers, which included Eugene Thuraisingam and Seraphine Low.

"At the centre of the case was a principle that anchors our criminal justice system: where a conviction rests on a complainant's uncorroborated account, that account must be unusually convincing before it can establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt,” wrote Mr Thuraisingam’s law firm in a LinkedIn post after the acquittal decision was delivered.

According to the Court, there were "inconsistencies which undermine the core elements of the complainant's evidence.” 

Therefore, it fell short of being unusually convincing. /TISG

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