Tang jailed for a day, fined $17,000

Tang jailed for a day, fined $17,000
By Khushwant Singh and Sujin Thomas

Ailing retail magnate Tang Wee Sung (left) walking out of Queenstown Remand Prison with his lawyer Cavinder Bull. Tang’s sentence for his attempt to illegally purchase a kidney included a day’s jail, but he was released after a few hours. ST PHOTO: AZIZ HUSSIN

AT 5.45PM yesterday, ailing retail magnate Tang Wee Sung, 56, walked out of Queenstown Remand Prison.
He had been sentenced in the afternoon to a day’s jail, but was set free at the end of the business day, after two hours.

About the case

Tang Wee Sung arriving in court with his nurse. He was jailed for one day and fined $17,000 for lying under oath and entering into an illegal kidney deal. ST PHOTO: WONG KWAI CHOW

Wang Chin Sing (left) was offered $300,000 to arrange the illegal sale of Mr Sulaiman’s kidney to Tang. He will be sentenced tomorrow.

Sketch of Indonesians Toni (left) and Sulaiman who were jailed for agreeing to sell their kidneys for over $20,000 each.
TANG Wee Sung is the third person to be jailed in the first illegal organ transplant case here.

In June, an Indonesian by the name of Toni, 27, was jailed 31/2 months and fined $2,000, while his compatriot Sulaiman Damanik, 26, served a three-week prison term.

Both men had lied in statutory declarations and before a transplant ethics committee that they were distant relatives of the organ recipients.

Toni sold his kidney for 186 million rupiah (S$29,000) to an Indonesian woman; Mr Sulaiman was arrested here before he could sell his kidney to Tang for $23,700.

Wang Chin Seng, 44, who helped arrange the illegal deals, will be sentenced tomorrow.

He admitted to 10 charges which included organ trading and coaching Tang and the Indonesians to lie in their statutory declarations; he also coached them to lie to the ethics committee that they were related to their respective recipients and that no payment was involved.

Wang was offered $300,000 to arrange the deal between Tang and Mr Sulaiman.

Another man, Whang Sung Lin, Tang’s 44-year-old nephew-in-law, has been charged with abetment by introducing Wang to Tang in return for a fee.

His trial is being arranged.

‘I’m fine,’ were the only words he uttered. He waved at family members as he got into a waiting car.

It brought to an end his run-in with the law in the first case here involving the illegal sale of a human organ - a kidney in this instance.

Earlier in the day, he paid $17,000 in fines for lying under oath and for organ trading.

In handing down the sentence, District Judge Ng Peng Hong said he was mindful that Tang’s potential kidney donor Sulaiman Damanik had been jailed two weeks for the same offence of making a false statutory declaration, but that, ‘given the very exceptional circumstances of Tang’s extreme ill health’, a long jail term was unnecessary.

Judge Ng acknowledged that Tang had broken the law, but added that more guilt should be placed with the dealers or middleman who sought to profit from the desperation of the poor organ seller and that of the terminally-ill buyer.

Tang, who pleaded guilty last week, stood expressionless in the dock for about half an hour before he was allowed to sit down.

When the hearing started at 2.30pm, the public gallery was packed with about 50 family members, friends and colleagues. Police turned away latecomers.

Tang’s lawyer, Senior Counsel Cavinder Bull, had asked the court to be lenient to his client last week, citing Tang’s long list of ailments and his daily regimen of 50 pills and injections.

Mr Bull suggested that the court impose a fine for his client’s offence of organ trading, which, under the Human Organ Transplant Act, stipulates a fine of up to $10,000 or a jail term of up to a year or both.

He also asked the court to consider a conditional discharge for Tang’s making of a false statutory declaration. This offence comes with a mandatory jail term of up to three years. Offenders may also be fined up to $10,000.

Mr Bull’s arguments last week centred on how inexpedient it would be to jail Tang, and that, at most, the penalty should not be more than a day’s jail.

The prosecution had argued that Tang was as guilty as Sulaiman in the eyes of the law and was the driving force in the illicit transaction.

The case has sparked a national debate on whether laws here need to be changed to allow some form of organ trading.

On the defence’s arguments that organ trading could soon be decriminalised by Parliament, Judge Ng said the matter was too speculative for him to consider.

He noted, however, that Tang had acted out of desperation, believing he was likely to die without a kidney transplant.

Mr Bull told reporters outside the courtroom that he was satisfied with the sentence and ruled out an appeal.

He said: ‘He is obviously going to be relieved that it is not longer than what he got, but I would not underestimate the impact of the sentence on him.’

Family members were, however, upset that Tang was jailed even a day. His older sister Janet Liok told The Straits Times: ‘We are very sad. He’s very sick and we are very worried now.’

Several members of the Singapore Retailers Association were also present.

Mr Keith Chua, 55, who has been close to Tang since their days at Anglo-Chinese School, felt that the judge had been merciful.

The businessman, who showed up in court with five other former schoolmates, said: ‘The judge explained the basis for his decision quite clearly. He is still going to have to deal with his medical condition once this is over.’

Later yesterday evening, Mr Bull told The Straits Times that Tang had gone home after being released from prison.

‘He was tired from the day’s activities. We discussed some legal matters and then I left him with his nurse,’ said Mr Bull.

Tang, who stepped down as the executive chairman of the C.K. Tang retail empire after his conviction last week, has one to two years to live without a kidney transplant.

Source : Straits Times - 04 Sept 2008

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