A former minister in the Singaporean Cabinet was sentenced to spend one year in jail on Thursday after pleading guilty to receiving illegal gifts.
It marked the end of a criminal case involving a former minister in the financial hub of Asia.
- Iswaran, the former transport minister in Singapore, last week pleaded guilty to obstructing justice as well as to four counts of accepting gifts from individuals with whom he had official business.
He becomes the first minister to be charged with a crime and sent to jail in almost 50 years in the country.
Vincent Hoong, the justice who oversaw the case, wrote in his ruling that people who hold high office “must be expected to avoid any perception that they are susceptible to influence by pecuniary benefits.”
As he ruled that Iswaran must spend the next 12 months in jail because of the five charges, Hoong said:
“I am of the view that it is appropriate to impose a sentence in excess of both parties’ positions.”
The prosecution was pushing for Iswaran to spend between six and seven months in jail, while the defense team argued that his prison term should be limited to no more than eight weeks.
Channel News Asia reported that the judge did approve the request from Iswaran’s team to delay the beginning of his sentence until next Monday. Until then, he will remain out of jail on bail.
It’s unclear whether he plans to appeal this sentence.
Initially, Iswaran faced 35 different criminal charges. Prosecutors only went forward with five of those charges, though, and reduced two other corruption counts to receiving illegal gifts.
They didn’t give any reason why they decided to go that route.
Prosecutors allege that Iswaran received gifts that were worth more than $57,000 (or 74,000 Singapore dollars) from property tycoon Ong Beng Seng as well as businessperson Lum Kok Seng.
Among the gifts were tickets to a Formula 1 race in Singapore, whisky, wine and a luxury Brompton bike.
Iswaran was once the chair, and later served as an adviser, to the steering committee of the Grand Prix, and Ong owns the rights to the F1 race locally.
Once Iswaran’s case has fully been resolved, the Attorney-General’s Chambers said it will then decide whether they will proceed with additional charges against Lum and Ong.
The ministers in Singapore are among the best-paid politicians in the world. The amount of money that was involved in this alleged bribery was particularly minor, but the indictment still serves as an embarrassing moment for the People’s Action Party, which has always run on having a clean image.
Transparency International publishes a corruption perception index, and it found that Singapore ranked among the least-corrupt countries in the world.
The last minister of the Cabinet in Singapore who faced grafting charges was Wee Toon Boon. In 1975, he was found guilty of accepting gifts in exchange for aiding a businessperson, and he was jailed for those crimes.
