German vandals ordered jailed, caned in S'pore

SINGAPORE: A Singapore court on Thursday sentenced two young German men to nine months in prison and three strokes of the cane for spray-painting a metro train in the city-state last year.
Andreas Von Knorre, 22, and Elton Hinz, 21, were sentenced after pleading guilty to vandalism and trespassing. Both asked for mercy before sentencing and called their acts a "stupid mistake".
"The imprisonment sentence is nine months in total and the mandatory three strokes of the cane," District Judge Liew Thiam Leng said.
They were sentenced to four months in jail for breaking into a suburban train depot in November 2014 and five months and three strokes of the cane for vandalising a carriage with spray paint.
Both men fled Singapore after the incident but were caught in neighbouring Malaysia en route to Australia and extradited.
Singapore, a leading Asian financial hub, is known for its tough stance on crime.
Its vandalism laws became global news in 1994 when an American teenager, Michael Fay, was caned for damaging cars and public property.
In 2010 Swiss expatriate Oliver Fricker was sentenced to seven months in jail and three strokes of the cane after he used spray paint to vandalise a train at a depot.
Caning is a punishment dating back to British colonial rule in Singapore and involves being flogged with a rattan stick which often leaves permanent scars. – AFP