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

DATE: FRIDAY, April 22, 1994                   TAG: 9404220186
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Cox News Service
DATELINE: SINGAPORE                                 LENGTH: Short

FLOGGING DEBATE HEATS UP

Two days after President Clinton suggested that police here might have bullied an American teen-ager into a confession that led to a controversial flogging sentence, the Singapore government on Thursday issued a pointed denial calling the charge ``absurd.''

The response, issued Thursday night by the Ministry of Home Affairs, was the latest escalation in a dispute between Singapore and Washington over plans to lash Michael Fay for spraying paint on two automobiles.

The controversy was increased by a report in the government-controlled press that authorities are not treating a similar car vandalism case that took place this week as serious enough to warrant a flogging.

It called into question official statements that Fay had received the only sentence possible under Singapore law.

Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, submitted an appeal for clemency Wednesday to Singapore President Ong Teng Cheong, who is expected to consult the cabinet before ruling on it.

The Straits Times, a local newspaper strictly monitored by the Singapore government, reported in a six-paragraph story Thursday that authorities are treating the spraying of a car this week as a case of ``mischief.'' Such offenses are punishable by jail or fines, not flogging.

Fay's lawyers were seeking to have his case treated as one of ``mischief'' when they recommended last month that he plead guilty to charges that he sprayed paint on two automobiles last September.

by CNB