Another Australian arrested in Sg for drugs
-
As a reporter covered the case of Australian Nguyen Tuong Van, executed by Singapore in 2005 for heroin trafficking,ABC journalist Peter Lloyd
should know better than anyone the harsh drug laws in this little red dot.
It is sad he recently separated from his wife.
The reason:He is gay!!
2.I find ABC decription of SG drugs laws as
''draconian by most other nations' standards.''very offensive.
It is a bias!!It should not appear in news report.
I agree this kind of decription can appear in commentary
in a personal capacity,but not ,to me,look like representing ABC's
stand.
Like FM of Oz just said:
..they must conduct themselves in accordance with the laws
of that country.
http://www.todayonline.com/articles/265937.asp
FULL STOP.Never mind it is draconian or iPhone .
The most important is:It works for this red dot country.
Even with the harsh laws,ther are so many
caught.Imagine the laws become more lenient,like his
home country.....Drug Lords are equiped with guns,
making lot of $$$,nice cars and houses
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24028233-661,00.html
Drug Taskforce detectives seized assets including a Harley Davidson, a Mercedes, weapons, property, a large amount of cash and documentation as part of the warrants.
weapons including unlicensed hand guns, and the vehicles were seized earlier this morning.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/technology/4805710/abc-correspondent-charged-drug-offences-singapore
The law provides for punishment that could be best described as draconian by most other nations' standards.
The Misuse of Drugs Act also creates a presumption of trafficking for certain threshold amounts, for example, a person in possession of 30 grams of cannabis is deemed to be trafficking.
It also states that any person found in or escaping from a place or premises which is proved or presumed to be used for the purpose of administering a drug shall, until the contrary is proved, be presumed to have been administering a controlled drug in that place.
Hence it is dangerous in Singapore to even be in the company of drug users.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,24042519-5001021,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/adelaidenow/story/0,22606,24043739-5006301,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24042514-5001021,00.html
-
He just came to SG from Jakarta where he visited his separated wife and kids.
Appointed as anchor host for a morning show,his arrest is a shock
to ABC colleague.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,,24042519-5001021,00.html
It would be stage two of a major mid-life change for the 41-year-old, who declared himself a gay man when separating from his wife, the mother of his two children, just six months ago.
His arrest on ice-related drug charges has not just thrown his new world into turmoil, but also that of his family.
And the ABC, where he was due to launch and co-host the new four hour news Breakfast TV program on ABC2 with Virginia Trioli in September.
Plans for the show's yet-to-be-revealed launch were up in the air last night.
"It's still quite recent that he came out, and that was really unexpected among friends and colleagues and his wife of course," a fellow correspondent said.
"You'd think that after doing that he would have been at personal peace with himself for the first time in a long time. So for this to happen must be devastating.
"He and Kirstyn were separated but still talk, and after they split she found a job in Jakarta because it meant the kids would be closer to Peter."
The colleague said it was a mystery who the 31-year-old Singaporean man Lloyd is alleged to have supplied .6g of ice to was.
Lloyd is one of the ABC's most high-profile journalists, having covered stories such as the tsunami across the Asian region and has been nominated for major awards
-
1.Arrest of 3 traffickers and 3 abusers
On 16 July 2008, acting on information received, CNB officers arrested a 31-year old Singaporean male drug abuser at Blk 714 Ang Mo Kio Ave 6. Upon arrest, the abuser surrendered a packet of ‘Ice’ weighing 0.6 grams. He is under investigation for the offences of drug possession and consumption under the Misuse of Drugs Act (MDA), Cap 185.
Further investigations established his supplier to be a 41-year-old Australian national who is in Singapore on a social visit pass. The Australian national was arrested and in the course of follow-up search, the officers recovered a packet of ‘Ice’ weighing approximately 0.8 grams, 1 improvised smoking pipe and 6 syringes. His urine was screened positive for Amphetamines, a controlled drug, on the instant urine test machine. He is under investigation for the offence of trafficking in a controlled drug under the MDA. If convicted, he faces imprisonment of between 5 and 20 years and between 5 and 15 strokes of the cane.
In follow-up operations, CNB officers arrested another 4 Singaporeans for related offences of trafficking and drug abuse. The 4 are under investigation for trafficking and consumption of controlled drugs under the MDA.
Four subjects, including the 31-year-old Singaporean and the 41-year-old Australian national will be charged in court tomorrow. Investigations on the remaining 2 for their drug consumption offence are on-going.
Central Narcotics Bureau
17 July 2008
2.Response to media queries
In response to media queries, CNB spokesperson Agnes Lim confirmed the following:
“Lloyd Peter Gerard has been charged for trafficking and possession of methamphetamine. He has been offered bail. His case has been fixed for next mention on 25 July 2008.”
Central Narcotics Bureau
18 July 2008
http://www.cnb.gov.sg/newsroom/index.asp
Oz media,in my above links,JBJ said he is most likely sentenced for 5 years.
-
http://au.messages.yahoo.com/news/top-stories/1195172?p=2
read their forums on the arrest
-
"People have to understand that when you go to another country and commit a crime against the laws of that country, you are punished according to the laws of that country," Mr (PM JOHN) Howard said..
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2005/10/24/1489588.htm
OZ then PM John Howard on Tuong Van Nguyen.
This golden rule apply to all,including SG citizens in other countries.
..
-
I think he was still in Changi Prison Medical Center on Sunday 20 July.
He was offered bail but not taken up and was expected to meet his
ABC boss on Monday 21.
http://au.news.yahoo.com/a/-/latest/4810925/abc-news-head-singapore-meet-lloyd
A Singapore court official said Lloyd had been offered bail on a $S60,000 ($A45,500) surety.
The conditions of the bail, which have yet to be taken up, were that it must be posted by a Singaporean citizen and that Lloyd must report to investigating officers every Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
His passport would be impounded, he would not be able to leave the country without permission, and he must remain contactable at all times, the official said.
-
wall of text by noisy lion again
TS is so much more refined by merely posting the link, and not a wall of text
Short passages are ok, but walls of text can be considered spamming and being an irritant.
-
AI says harsh rule is no use to combat drugs problems.
read this
http://www.mha.gov.sg/basic_content.aspx?pageid=74
-
Singapore's blood money
Hanging drug couriers but investing with their suppliers
By Dennis Bernstein and Leslie Kean
FRIDAYS, just before dawn, are hanging days in Singapore. Navarat Maykha, a Thai mother of two small children, awaited her turn as she prayed in her jail cell with her attorney, Peter Fernando, just a few days before her execution. An impoverished and uneducated woman, and also deeply religious, she swore until her death that she was unaware of the heroin that was hidden in the lining of a suitcase given to her by a Nigerian friend.Singapore - a tiny island nation of 3 million perched at the southern tip of the Asian continent - prides itself on its strict drug laws, which include a mandatory death sentence for anyone caught with as little as half an ounce of heroin.
"It's heartbreaking sometimes," said Fernando during a recent interview from his office in Singapore. "If you are an addict, and you are simply sitting at home with more than 15 grams of heroin and you cannot prove with scientific accuracy that a portion of the drugs are for personal use, you will hang."
The fiercely authoritarian government micro-manages all aspects of the secretive hangings, as it does everything else in this country. This efficiency allows for the possibility of multiple executions when drug offenders swell the prison. On September 27, 1996, six people were hanged in one morning. Four had been hanged the previous Friday, all for drug trafficking. According to Amnesty International, 1995 - the year Navarat was executed - was a busy year at the gallows in Singapore, when more than fifty people were hanged, the majority for drug offenses.
In its March 1997 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report, the US State Department said that "the number of drug traffickers hanged in Singapore increased dramatically in the last two years." Amnesty International, also describing a "sharp increase in the number of executions" in a 1997 report, states that those executed are most often small-time addicts and couriers, usually poorly educated and economically vulnerable, "while those who organise and profit from the crimes frequently escape capture and prosecution."
But that does not describe the worst of it. The Nation has learned that the highest levels of the Singaporean government, using the New York-based Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, a subsidiary of J.P. Morgan, as a custodial operative, are engaging in joint business ventures with one of the world's most notorious drug lords and with the drug-backed military dictatorship of Burma (Myanmar). This has been confirmed by corporate, government and legal documents from four countries and was contended by high-ranking US narcotics and government officials in private interviews.
Dual-track policy
ACCORDING to interviews with Singaporean lawyers and US narcotics officials, the heroin found in Singapore comes mostly from Burma, one of the world's largest exporters of the highly profitable drug, with 1996 exports estimated at $1 billion. Since the State Law and Order Restoration Council (SLORC) takeover of Burma in 1988, illicit drug exports have more than doubled; French and US satellite surveys have shown an explosion of poppy-growing in areas under the SLORC's direct control. In 1995 the Australian Parliament heard testimony on SLORC protection of the narcotics trade as a matter of policy, "in order to raise government revenue." And a report last year by the US embassy in Rangoon, based on the SLORC's economic data, concluded that exports of opiates "appear to be worth about as much as all legal exports" and that investments in infrastructure and hotels are coming from major opiate-growing and opiate-exporting organisations [see Bernstein and Kean, "People of the Opiate," December 16, 1996].
"Drug traffickers who once spent their days leading mule trains down jungle tracks are now leading lights in Burma's new market economy," said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright in a statement this past July. "We are increasingly concerned that Burma's drug traffickers, with official encouragement, are laundering their profits through Burmese banks and companies - some of which are joint ventures with foreign businesses," she said. It is with the SLORC, and allied organizations, that Singapore's hang-'em-high government is investing so heavily - in such ventures as hotels and infrastructure.
This dual-track policy is condoned and encouraged at top levels of the Singaporean regime, including by Lee Kuan Yew, the country's undisputed strongman. Lee, whose antidrug policies are among the strictest in the world, is participating in the country's deepening business relationships with renowned heroin trafficker Lo Hsing Han of Burma and his son and business partner, Steven Law. Their operations in Burma, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and the United States are now the focus of an ongoing U.S. government narcotics and money-laundering investigation, The Nation has learned.
Lo Hsing Han, a Kokang Chinese from the opium-producing region of Burma's Golden Triangle, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1973 - not for drug trafficking, which had been carried out with the tacit agreement of the state, but for treason. After being released in a 1980 government amnesty, he returned to the Kokang region. As of 1994, Lo controlled the most heavily armed drug-trafficking organization in Southeast Asia. Today he rules with godfather status over a clan of traffickers, and his organisation controls a substantial amount of the world's opium production, according to US narcotics officials. A memo from the Thai government's Office of Narcotics Control Board states that Lo's trafficking activities are augmented through his link to Burma's military intelligence chief, Lieut Gen Khin Nyunt, described as Lo's "supporter." It says that in 1993 Lo was granted the "privilege from Lieut. Gen Khin Nyunt to smuggle heroin from the Kokang Group to Tachilek [on the Thai border] without interception."
Lo is chairman of Burma's Asia World Company Limited, managed by his son Law, who has achieved unprecedented success under the current dictatorship. "Law's power and connections are unparalleled," comments one US official. "No other domestic investor in Burma can get an audience with a cabinet member with one phone call. When Law got married, eight cabinet members showed up." Law's multimillion-dollar business ventures seem to win all bidding wars in Burma's development race. (Law was denied a visa to the United States last year. "We have information that leads us to believe he is a trafficker in illicit substances," a US government official told The Nation in explanation.)
Business is business
WALL Street Journal editors, in the 1997 Index of Economic Freedom, rated Singapore as the most business-friendly country in the world. Unfortunately, that friendliness has been extended to Lo Hsing Han, Steven Law and the narco-dictatorship of Burma.
As Tay Thiam Peng, director of foreign operations at Singapore's Trade Development Board, bluntly put it in 1996, when it comes to business, morality takes a back seat to profits. "While the other countries are ignoring Myanmar (Burma), it's a good time for us to go in," Tay stated. "You get better deals, and you're more appreciated... Singapore's position is not to judge them and take a judgmental moral high ground." As Burma's number-one business partner, Singapore now has 53 projects in Burma, which as of January totaled nearly $1.2 billion.
"Since 1988...over half of [the investments from] Singapore have been tied to the family of narco-trafficker Lo Hsing Han,'' says Robert Gelbard, former US Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Most of these investments are in joint projects with Lo's family-controlled Asia World Company. Asia World includes a host of subsidiaries and three overseas branches in Singapore. US narcotics officials say that these "overseas branches" are part of the ongoing money-laundering investigation.
Asia World's 1996 company profile states that it began as a trader in agricultural and animal feed products but today "has emerged as one of Myanmar's (Burma's) fastest growing and most diversified conglomerates." Burma's largest private-sector enterprise, it has interests in trading, manufacturing, real estate, industrial investment, development, construction, transportation, imports and distribution. Asia World's operations now include the running of a deep-water port in Rangoon, the bus company Leo Express into northern Burma, and a $33 million toll highway from Burma's poppy-growing region to the Chinese border.
The combination of the Burmese military's ability to protect shipments and production in the country and Asia World's ability to move product over land and sea completes a perfect marriage of convenience. In addition to these operations, US narcotics officials say that Lo Hsing Han also runs a container business, shipping cargo out of Rangoon from a nondescript container yard the size of a city block. They suspect it of being a drug-shipping operation. Although it is a subsidiary of Asia World, the containerized cargo processing facility has no name, no sign and is not mentioned in Asia World's business profile. According to one official, some of the several hundred containers that have left this yard have gone to Singapore and the United States.
In a June telephone interview from his headquarters in Rangoon, Law denied all allegations of drug trafficking. He laughed and said that Asia World operates under government regulations, "so if we do anything against government policy, we cannot do our business," Law said. "That's why concerning your point of any drugs in our city, I can say we haven't [been] involved."
The money trail: the Myanmar Fund
THE Singapore government, in cooperation with Morgan Guaranty Trust Company, is directly connected to key business ventures of drug kingpin Lo through an investment group called the Myanmar Fund. The fund, which provides investors "with long term capital appreciation from direct or indirect investments in Myanmar (Burma)," is registered as a tax-free fund in Jersey, Channel Islands, according to documents provided to the Irish Stock Exchange.
Singapore's largest government-controlled financial institution - the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) - is listed in the documents along with Morgan Guaranty Trust Bank (a J.P. Morgan subsidiary separate from the Trust Company) as a core shareholder in the Myanmar Fund. A September 1996 GIC business profile from the Registry of Companies and Businesses in Singapore shows that high-level
Singaporean politicians are officers and directors of the GIC, including senior minister Lee Kuan Yew; his son, deputy prime minister Brig Gen Lee Hsien Loong; and finance minister Dr Richard Hu. As a core shareholder, the GIC helps determine how the fund's money is invested in Burma. Jean Tan, a spokesperson for the Singaporean embassy in Washington, confirmed in a June interview that the GIC holds a 21.5 percent share of the Myanmar Fund. As of last November, this investment was worth $10 million, according to the Singaporean government.
The Myanmar Fund owns 25 percent of an Asia World subsidiary, Asia World Industries. In fact, the Myanmar Fund's 1997 first-quarter report features two pictures of Asia World factories on its cover. The Myanmar Fund has also heavily invested in a number of luxury hotels in Burma, including Rangoon's Traders and Shangri-La. The Asia World business profile describes the Traders and Shangri-La hotels as major investment projects for Lo Hsing Han's company. It says that the Shangri-La Hotel (and surrounding apartments and offices) will be "the biggest of all" Asia World's investments, with "$200 million...in appropriation of the project."
In an official press release last November, the Singapore government stated that its investments in the Myanmar Fund were "completely open and above board" and that its investments in both the two luxury hotels and Asia World were "straightforward investments in bona fide commercial projects." However, the fund's operations are hardly straightforward and open. The operations of the GIC itself are effectively a state secret. The government company is not required to file annual reports or report to parliament. It has no public accountability, even though it uses public moneys for its investments. Furthermore, according to fund documents, in late 1994 - only weeks after being listed on the Irish Stock Exchange - the GIC's shares disappeared from the stock exchange register and were re-registered under the name of Ince & Co. The Singaporean government acknowledged in November that Morgan Guaranty Trust Company is the custodian for the GIC securities, and that Ince & Co. was set up by Morgan to hold the shares in its custody.
Morgan Guaranty Trust Bank, investing yet other funds on behalf of clients, is the largest core shareholder (followed by the GIC) of the Myanmar Fund at 42 percent, according to a fund report. This means that together, the Singaporean regime's GIC and Morgan Guaranty Trust Bank have been in control of 63 percent of the Myanmar Fund and its co-investments with the corporation chaired by drug baron Lo Hsing Han. (The GIC shares re-listed as Ince & Co have shifted hands once again. In a February document obtained by The Nation, the fund reported transfer of the Ince & Co. shares to another company, Hare & Co. In telephone interviews, spokesmen for the Myanmar Fund, the GIC and Morgan Guaranty refused to provide information about the identity or purpose of the new custodial company.)
Dining with the devil
SINGAPORE'S dealings with Lo Hsing Han and Steven Law continue to expand unabated. Singapore's GIC investment in the Myanmar Fund increased by 4.3 percent in 1996. In Rangoon, the Traders Hotel celebrated its official opening last November. At the opening ceremony, attended by Singapore's Ambassador and graced with an ap-pearance by Lo himself, the presiding SLORC minister publicly thanked both Steven Law and the government of Singapore for paving the road for a smooth business partnership. "I would like to extend my sincere gratitude to the government of Singapore," he said, "without whose support and encouragement there would be very few Singaporean businessmen in our country."
Since then, ground has been broken on the construction of Sinmardev, a new, $207 million industrial park and port on the outskirts of Rangoon. A Singaporean consortium is the leader in a joint venture with the SLORC, the Myanmar Fund, Lo's family company and a slew of international shareholders. The Myanmar Fund holds a 10 percent interest in Sinmardev. Singaporean entrepreneur Albert Hong, head of Sinmardev, described the project as the largest foreign investment in Burma outside the energy field.
"Singapore is more involved with Lo than any other country, because that's basically where Steven Law is functioning out of when he's not in Burma," observes a US narcotics official.
Singapore's rulers continue to deny any wrongdoing in connection with their relationship to Asia World. "It is fairly far-fetched, trying to link the Singaporean government and drug traffickers," said embassy spokesperson Jean Tan.
"Nonsense," says Singapore's former solicitor general Francis Seow, now a research fellow at the East Asian Legal Studies Program of Harvard Law School. The former close associate of Lee Kuan Yew says he knows "through personal experience" that Lee micro-manages every aspect of Singaporean political, economic and social policy.
Dr Chee Soon Juan, secretary general of the Singapore Democratic Party and a leader of Singapore's political opposition, was labeled a traitor for raising the drug issue in Singapore. "Drug peddlers are routinely hanged in Singapore for carrying heroin," wrote Chee, in a rare and courageous act of public protest in response to a documentary that aired on Australian television last year, Singapore Sling. "And where are all these drugs coming from? Drug lords like Lo Hsing Han are the big-time pushers aided by the SLORC generals." "Is this not hypocrisy at its worst?" he asked.
"The Singapore government knows it's having dinner with the devil, and sharing a very short spoon," says Seow. "And it is a terrible double standard. Drug moneys are being laundered apparently by the same drug lords who supply the heroin for which small-time drug dealers are hanged. We are reaping profits as Burma's biggest investor, but we're being paid with blood money."
-
did he offended anyone ?
-
but Burma's Generals, infamous for their involvement in the golden triangle that shipped tons of heroin worldwide, still can come to singapore for leisure and medical treatment.
the law hang the small fries whereas the big drug lords get red carpet treatment. even mugabe is in singapore for holiday and medical too.
-
Peter Lloyd has appeared in public after being bailed on drug charges in Singapore.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/
2.
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24068580-5001021,00.html?from=public_rss
Peter Lloyd slips out back door of Singapore jail
why did SG police /prison give him this kind of favours?
July 24, 2008 12:00am
ABC journalist Peter Lloyd and his boss John Cameron last night secured what thousands of accused Singaporean criminals would have loved - a back-door escape from an embarrassing court appearance.
Federal government officials last night denied there was any special treatment given to the well-respected foreign correspondent, but locals said told The Daily Telegraph it was almost unprecedented.
With the toll of his ordeal weighing heavily on his face, Lloyd faced Singapore's Subordinates Court yesterday afternoon, handcuffed and wearing an orange prison-issue jumpsuit.
He looked gaunt and thin as his lawyer asked a judge to push through his release on bail.
Alongside Mr Cameron and other consular officials was Mohamed Mazlee bin abdul Malik, who told the court the pair were "good friends".
In brief evidence to the court he said the $45,000 surety was his money, and that he had known the 41-year-old since mid-2007.
"I know his family, I know his wife, I know his kids, I know his sister, I know his brother-in-law," Mr Malik said.
"In any case he will be staying in my place."
The judge granted Lloyd's release with additional conditions that he report to police three times a week, and remain contactable to authorities.
But after completing the paperwork, Lloyd was able to leave by a secure rear-door entrance - usually reserved only for police or prison vehicles.
Earlier in the day, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith had ensured Lloyd would receive no special treatment and his spokesman last night maintained that such assistance had not been provided.
"I can categorically tell you that there was no ministerial or senior government official representations made," the spokesman said.
He said the consular role in this case, as it would be with any other accused Australian, was purely to "facilitate the wishes of the affected person."
"If he (Lloyd) requested that to prison officials, it's our duty of care to assist with that," he said.
"But I can tell you with 100 percent certainty, there was no intervention by the minister."
Calls to the local Department of Foreign Affairs were not returned last night.
A local media representative said to take an accused person out the back door must have involved high level clearance.
"This kind of thing just does not happen here," she said. "It's extremely unusual."
Lloyd is due to appear in court again on Friday where his case will be mentioned.
-
Originally posted by eagle:
wall of text by noisy lion again
TS is so much more refined by merely posting the link, and not a wall of text
Short passages are ok, but walls of text can be considered spamming and being an irritant.
None of what you said above a related to drugs. That IMO is spamming.
-
damn!
Ice...
-
re court hearing on 25 jul 2008 friday
ABC reporter faces(3) more charges after drug bust
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/lloyd-faces-new-charges/2008/07/25/1216492699163.html
Peter Lloyd assisted by an auxillary policeman upon arrival at the Subordinate court today.
Photo: AFPThree new drug charges laid against ABC journalist Peter Lloyd in Singapore include one count of possessing utensils that carried traces of the veterinary drug ketamine.
Nicknamed Special K, ketamine is also a recreational drug used for its psychedelic or hallucinogenic effects.
The other two new charges against Lloyd are methamphetamine consumption without authorisation, and possessing utensils that carried traces of methamphetamine, a charge sheet shows....
The consumption charge carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in jail or a $S20,000 ($15,400) fine, or both.
The other two charges each have a maximum penalty of three years in jail or a $S10,000 ($7700) fine or both.
-
Re bail review at court on Wed 23 july 2008
DPP cited last year case of a Oz musician jumped bail on
drug offences,leading S$100,000 bail monei forfeited.
http://www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/singaporelocalnews/view/254729/1/.html
http://www.straitstimes.com/Latest%2BNews/Courts%2Band%2BCrime/STIStory_260517.html?vgnmr=1
from the news above,
I think bailor has to take money from his pocket,not from accused or family.
His lawyer Mr Tan Jee Ming at first offered to be bailor for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) scribe, clad in the orange prison overalls for his bail review.
When told by District Judge John Ng that he might have a problem, counsel then said Lloyd had a Singaporean friend who could bail him out. A Mr Mohamed Mazlee Abdul Malik stepped forward, claiming to be Lloyd's good friend.
i feel strange that Judge found lawyer's offer get problem.
Or lawyer cannot act as bailor at all?
-
hang him
i tot all drug related offence in singapore = instant hang
-
As a journalist who covered a drug trial, he knows our laws but chooses to disregard them. He deserves the full penalty under the law.
-
He is gonna run for it.