American teenager Michael Fay shook the hand of the man who caned him, said he wanted to "act like a man" and smiled as he walked back to his prison cell here Thursday to serve the rest of his sentence for vandalism, Singapore's Prisons Department said Saturday.
It said that during an interview with a U.S. consular officer Friday, Fay appeared "quite cheerful" and said the caning was "not as bad" as he had expected. The Prisons Department's account was distributed Saturday to counter what it described as "wild allegations and misinformation" disseminated by Fay's father, George Fay, and his lawyer, Theodore Simon, in interviews in the United States.Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, received four strokes on the bare buttocks with a thin rattan rod Thursday as part of a sentence for allegedly spray-painting cars with other foreign youths in October. He is serving a four-month term at Queenstown Remand Prison and has paid a $2,230 fine.
The punishment, denounced by President Clinton, has fueled an international debate over whether the United States has the right to challenge another country's criminal justice system.
After visiting Fay on Friday, U.S. consular officer John Coe briefed Fay's mother and stepfather at the American Embassy here and his father and Simon by telephone conference call. Fay's mother, Randy Chan, afterward called the caning "torture," while his father and Simon said the punishment left the teenager "bloodied," "slashed" and in "continual pain."
"Mike's flesh was ripped and broken, and there was horizontal slashing and cutting," Simon told reporters. He said that during the caning, "blood ran down Mike's legs" and that he was put "in a prison hospital ward."
George Fay asserted that his son "was only able to walk with some difficulty" and had to stand up through most of his interview with Coe.