Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 6, 1994 TAG: 9405060122
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: SINGAPORE LENGTH: Medium
Although widely expected since Fay's clemency appeal was turned down Wednesday, the execution of his sentence provoked outrage from his parents. The State Department called in the Singapore ambassador to express its displeasure.
``I think it was a mistake,'' President Clinton told reporters in a brief appearance in the Rose Garden, ``not only because of the nature of the punishment related to the crime but because of the questions that were raised about whether the young man was in fact guilty and involuntarily confessed.''
A brief statement by the Singapore prisons department said 10 prisoners were caned at the Queenstown Remand Prison Thursday afternoon, including Fay, an 18-year-old high school senior from Dayton, Ohio. The statement said Fay received four strokes of the four-foot cane. ``He was examined by a prison doctor after the caning and found to be in satisfactory condition,'' the statement said.
The Fay case has drawn extraordinary interest worldwide, becoming the subject of countless talk shows and newspaper editorials fueled by rising concern in the West about crime and the best way to control it. Thousands of Americans wrote to urge Singapore's government to go ahead with the punishment, and Fay became a symbol of a culture clash between East and West.
The case also catapulted tiny Singapore, an island with 3 million people, to celebrity as an autocratically ruled city-state where the streets are safe, the subway is spotless, but individual liberty is relegated to a second place behind the order of society.
In an extraordinary attempt at compromise, the normally unyielding government announced it had ordered President Ong Teng Cheong to reduce Fay's original caning sentence from six strokes to four as a goodwill gesture to the United States. Fay also is serving a four-month jail sentence and paid a $2,230 fine.
Although the flogging was carried out in private, a description published by the government Sunday said Fay would be strapped to a wooden trestle and his back covered with pads to prevent damage to the kidneys and spine.
``The caning does not cause `skin and flesh to fly' as alleged by critics,'' the statement said. ``It may, however, leave bruises and marks.''
The State Department has contended that caning leaves permanent scars and is an ``excessive penalty'' for a youthful first-offender in a case where the cars were not permanently damaged. It also maintained that Fay received unusually harsh treatment because Singapore's vandalism laws were never used in a case involving private property before.
``All they have accomplished is to show how petty and narrow-minded a dictatorship they are,'' said George Fay, the youth's father, in the Dayton suburb of Kettering. ``This reinforces my resolve to fight them and prevent others going through the same process.''
Fay's mother, Randy Chan, who lives in Singapore with her second husband, an executive at a courier company, said she was too overcome to comment.
Philadelphia criminal lawyer Theodore Simon, retained by Fay's family in the United States, said the Singaporeans had ``tortured an innocent young man for no other reason than to promote their political self-interest.''
The sentence was carried out after a visit Thursday afternoon by Fay's Singapore lawyers, who told reporters at the prison that he had no idea when he would be caned. ``He appeared nervous, agitated,'' said Dominick Nagulendran, of his defense team. ``He said, `Tell everybody I'll be home soon.' '' With time off for good behavior, Fay could be released from jail as early as June 21.
by CNB