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In 1994, a court in Singapore sentenced an American teenager, Michael Fay, to be lashed six times with a cane for violating the Vandalism Act. This caused a temporary strain in relations between Singapore and the United States.[1]
Fay was arrested for stealing road signs and vandalizing 18 cars over a ten-day period in September 1993. Fay pled guilty, but he later claimed that he was advised that such a plea would preclude caning and that his confession was false, that he never vandalized any cars, and that the only crime he committed was stealing road signs. Although caning is a routine court sentence in Singapore, Fay's sentence garnered controversy and was widely covered in the media in the United States, as it was believed to be the first judicial corporal punishment involving an American citizen.[2] The number of cane strokes in Fay's sentence was ultimately reduced from six to four after United States officials requested leniency, and the sentence was carried out on May 5, 1994.
- ^ Shenon, Philip (March 16, 1994). "A Flogging Sentence Brings a Cry of Pain in U.S." The New York Times. Archived from the original on August 23, 2017.
- ^ Wallace, Charles P. (March 9, 1994). "Singapore Blasts Back at Clinton in Caning Case". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved March 25, 2009.