SINGAPORE: On Thursday, May 4, the chief writer of the other news site The Online Citizen and a poet for the system successfully appealed to experience their criminal defamation jail terms changed to fines. & nbsp,
Terry Xu Yuanchen, 40, received a fine of Mho$ 8, 000 instead of the initial three weeks in prison for defaming Singaporean Cabinet customers. & nbsp,
This was done in exchange for approving the September 2018 release of a letter alleging” problem at the highest echelons.”
Daniel De Costa Augustin, 39, the letter’s author, was given a fine of S$ 10,000 to change his three-week prison sentence.
He was sentenced to three months in prison for one count of having unapproved connection to an email account that was not his and was used to post the article, but he will still serve that sentence.
The couple also appealed their views, but Justice Aedit Abdullah overruled their request.
The three-week prison term for criminal defamation, according to Justice Abdullah, is” clearly unnecessary.”
He asserted that there was a difference in seriousness between claiming that members of the Cabinet were crooked and, through their stupidity, allowing corruption to harm Singapore’s creation or elite.
He claimed that the latter was the target of the slander in this instance and that it should be considered in the statement.
Mr. Chung Ting Fai, who represented De Costa, was successful in getting the statement postponed.
Xu did not show up in court. Mr. Remy Choo, his attorney, confirmed with CNA that Xu is in Taiwan. When a city court sentenced him in April 2022, he had already served three days in prison.
Justice Abdullah scheduled a second reading for Mr. Choo to speak with Xu to discuss whether he would prefer to have the occasion served used as the two weeks’ prison in default for the S$ 8, 000 good or not.