[ad_1]
Unlock the Editor’s Digest totally free
Roula Khalaf, Editor of the FT, selects her favorite tales on this weekly e-newsletter.
Singapore’s former transport minister S Iswaran has been sentenced to at least one 12 months in jail for accepting greater than $300,000 in items as a public servant and obstructing justice, native media reported, in a uncommon graft case involving a authorities official within the Asian monetary hub.
The jail time period handed down on Thursday was longer than the six to seven months sought by prosecutors for Iswaran, who was instrumental in bringing the Components One Grand Prix to Singapore.
Iswaran, 62, has been requested to give up himself on October 7 to start his jail time period, Singapore’s Channel Information Asia and The Straits Occasions reported.
He had pleaded responsible final month to 4 costs of acquiring precious gadgets and one cost of obstruction of justice, regardless of beforehand denying wrongdoing and vowing to clear his title.
Singapore prides itself on its popularity for clear governance and transparency, and ministers within the city-state are among the many highest paid on the earth, incomes about S$1mn (US$772,000) a 12 months, partly to discourage corruption.
Iswaran’s sentence marks the primary time in almost 50 years {that a} former minister has been jailed in Singapore. In 1975, Wee Toon Boon was sentenced to 4 and a half years in jail for accepting items from a businessman. His sentence was diminished on attraction to 18 months.
One other cupboard minister, Teh Cheang Wan, was investigated for accepting bribes in 1986 however died earlier than any costs had been introduced.
Iswaran was accused of acquiring items value S$403,297.92 from two native businessmen throughout his tenure as minister. He has returned S$380,305.95 to the federal government.
The items allegedly included tickets to English Premier League soccer matches, Components One races and performs together with Harry Potter and the Cursed Baby, Hamilton and Kinky Boots, in addition to a business-class flight from Doha to Singapore in 2022, prosecutors have stated.
Singapore authorities additionally seized wine, whisky, golf golf equipment and a Brompton T Line bicycle as a part of the investigation.
Singapore is about to carry elections subsequent 12 months after Prime Minister Lawrence Wong took workplace in Could because the city-state’s fourth chief and solely its second from exterior the founding Lee household.
The ruling Folks’s Motion occasion — which has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965 — is anticipated to win, however its popularity has taken a success from a sequence of scandals, together with the corruption allegations in opposition to Iswaran.
[ad_2]