
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, April 1, 1994                   TAG: 9404010025
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A8   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SINGAPORE                                LENGTH: Medium

AMERICAN YOUTH LOSES APPEAL OF FLOGGING

A court on Thursday rejected an American teen-ager's appeal of a sentence of flogging for spray-painting cars, saying he had pursued a "calculated course of criminal conduct."

Without a trace of emotion, Michael Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, was led from the high court by police to begin serving a four-month jail term in the case, which has attracted worldwide attention because of the flogging.

Marco Chan, Fay's stepfather,left the court without comment. Fay's teen-age friends packed the gallery during the appeal; several began to cry silently as he was led away.

U.S. charge d'affaires Ralph Boyce, who attended the appeal, expressed American regret at the sentence and called on the government to reconsider. "We continue to believe that caning is an excessive penalty for a youthful nonviolent offender who pleaded guilty to reparable crimes against private property," he said.

Singapore's ministry of foreign affairs later attacked Boyce for making his criticism in public.

Fay was sentenced on March 3 to receive six strokes of a moistened rattan cane, in addition to four months in jail and a $2,230 fine after pleading guilty to two counts of vandalism,two counts of criminal mischief and one count of possessing stolen property. He admitted to having spray-painted 18 cars.

In appealing his caning sentence, Fay asserted that the law did not require such a punishment in cases where the vandalism could be erased or removed. His lawyers argued that, because the spray paint was removed from the cars with turpentine,it was not indelible.

But Chief Justice Yong Pung How dismissed that argument,noting, "These acts of vandalism were committed relentlessly and willfully over a period of 10 days. This amounted to a calculated course of criminal conduct."

According to a Singapore prison official quoted in the 1970s, caning usually is administered by a prison official trained in martial arts. Those being punished often go into shock after the third stroke of the cane and scars left by the stick usually are permanent.

The Fay family is planning to appeal for executive clemency from President Ong Teng Cheong.

by CNB