Tang Wee Sung gets 1—day jail, fined for plans to buy kidney illegally

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Tang Wee Sung gets 1—day jail, fined for plans to buy kidney illegally
Channel NewsAsia
Channel NewsAsia - Thursday, September 4

SINGAPORE: Singapore’s retail magnate Tang Wee Sung has been sentenced to one day in jail and fined a total of S$17,000 for agreeing to buy a kidney illegally and lying to the Commissioner of Oaths.

Tang is the first person in Singapore to be prosecuted for this kidney—for—sale offence.

The 55—year—old had pleaded guilty to two of three charges a week ago.

The first charge is for agreeing to buy a kidney for about S$300,000 and the other, for lying to the Commissioner of Oaths.

The third charge — of lying to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital’s Transplant Ethics Committee — was taken into consideration during sentencing.

In his mitigation plea, Tang’s lawyer Cavinder Bull had urged the judge to impose a fine for the first charge, which the judge did.

For the second charge, Mr Bull had said at most a one—day jail sentence would be appropriate.

In Tang’s defence, Mr Bull laid out factors to convince the judge why Tang should not go to jail.

He said Tang was driven by pure desperation to commit the offence as he suffers not just from end—stage renal failure but other medical problems such as diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Mr Bull said Tang also had no intention to exploit the poor and socially disadvantaged and that he never received a kidney in the end.

On the prosecution’s part, it had called for a fine of S$10,000 for the first charge and a "very short" jail sentence for the second.

The two Indonesian men involved in the kidney—for—sale case were sentenced to jail and fined on July 3.

Sulaiman Damanik, 26, who agreed to sell his kidney to Tang was sentenced to two weeks in jail and fined S$1,000. As he could not pay the fine, he was jailed for another one week.

The middleman, Wang Chin Sing — who brokered the deal between Tang and Sulaiman — will be sentenced on Friday.

He pleaded guilty to five charges related to this case. The charges include how 44—year—old Wang had coached Tang and Sulaiman to lie to the Commissioner of Oaths and the hospital’s Ethics Committee.

http://ph.news.yahoo.com/cna/20080904/tap-494-tang-wee-sung-gets-1-day-jail-fi-231650b.html