American teenager Michael Fay suffered four lashes with a rattan cane across his bare buttocks Thursday for vandalism, climaxing a case that provoked an international debate on crime and punishment.
The Prisons Department said he and nine other prisoners were flogged at Queenstown Prison, where the 18-year-old high school senior completed his fifth week of a four-month prison term for spray-painting cars and other acts."The remitted sentence of four strokes was carried out on Michael Fay. He was examined by the prison's doctor after the caning and found to be in satisfactory condition," a brief statement said.
No other details were given, and no official comment was expected from the government, which Wednesday reduced the original sentence of six strokes to four.
The punishment was carried out using a 4-foot-long, half-inch-thick rattan rod soaked in an antiseptic liquid to prevent it from splitting and embedding splinters in the buttocks.
In Washington, the Clinton administration said it would call in Singapore's ambassador Thursday to express the U.S. government's displeasure with the flogging of an American.
"The president believes the punishment was not consistent with the crime," White House press secretary Dee Dee Myers said.
Fay's lawyer, Ramanathan Palakrishnan, said he was trying to see his client as soon as possible but would not call in an independent doctor to verify his condition.
"We might get permission to see him early next week," he told NBC-TV in an interview Thursday. "(But) when state doctors say that (an inmate) is fine, we will accept that. We have no reason to doubt that."
Palakrishnan also said now that the caning was over, the government had reduced Fay's four-month sentence by a third, and he expected the teenager to be freed June 21.
Official descriptions of caning say prisoners are lashed to a trestle by their hands and ankles and struck on the bare buttocks by a long switch. The skin is broken, the buttocks are bloodied and permanent scars are often left.
The case sparked debate about whether Fay's punishment fit his crime.
Some Americans, fed up with violence in their society, said Fay should be lashed and similar punishment should be introduced in the United States. Others described Singapore's law as dra-co-nian.
Singapore staunchly defended its penal code and argued that America's liberal legal system was responsible for its high crime rate.
Earlier Thursday, defense lawyers who visited Fay in jail said he was prepared to face the punishment and thanked President Clinton and Singapore's president for their roles in having his sentence reduced.
"He is nervous and scared but is prepared to take it. He will grit his teeth when he is caned," said one of the lawyers, Dominic Nagulendran.
Clinton had written to President Ong Teng Cheong, and the government cited Clinton in reducing the number of strokes.
Fay had appealed to Ong for an exemption from the lashing.
Palakrishnan said his colleagues had spoken to Fay's mother, Randy Chan, after the caning and described her as being calm.
In an interview less than an hour before the caning was announced, Chan said: "To me six strokes is torture, four strokes is torture. As a mother, of course, I am thankful that it's four. But it's still horrendous."
His father, George Fay of Kettering, Ohio, described the punishment as "barbaric" Wednesday. After the caning, Fay said the government of Singapore lost face by the action.
"Now they look like they caved into the U.S. because they lowered the lashes, but they certainly haven't satisfied us by carrying out the caning," he told a local television station.
Both parents contend their son was coerced into a false confession by police.
Fay has lived in Singapore since 1992 with his mother and her husband, Marco Chan. They plan to return to the United States as soon as he is freed.
Meanwhile, the government-controlled newspaper Straits Times reported Thursday that a second American teenager charged with vandalism might escape the lash.
American Stephen M. Freehill, 16, and a 15-year-old Malaysian were among those rounded up by police with Fay last fall and charged with spray-painting cars and other acts of vandalism.
The newspaper quoted an unidentified police spokesman as saying the prosecution might not be able to get testimony from those already convicted because they have nothing to gain from testifying.
Freehill and the Malaysian were allegedly involved in a vandalism spree with Fay, Shiu Chi Ho, 17, of Hong Kong, and another 15-year-old Malaysian.
The Hong Kong youth is on bail pending appeal of his sentence.