wow, this sounds very scary:
Trainee doctor entrapped for drug possession
Straits Times, 9 June 2006, by Stephanie Yap
Passing time in an Internet chatroom one night, Adrian Yeo met a
man called Joe. Over the following few days, Joe was quite
persistent, sending him SMS messages asking if he had drugs, and if
he wanted to meet up 'to have fun'.
According to Yeo's mitigation plea submitted in court, he refused
the first few times. Eventually, the 26-year-old trainee doctor
gave in and met Joe, and another man, Jacob, at a Hotel 81, on
April Fools Day this year.
When he arrived at the hotel, he got a nasty surprise. Both men
turned out to be undercover Central Narcotics Bureau (CNB)
officers, who found 0.16g of methamphetamine on him.
Arrested for drug possession, Yeo was sentenced to eight months in
jail on Wednesday. The time in prison requires him to break a
$400,000 five-year bond with the Government, and casts a shadow on
his medical career.
CNB has often been known to employ the same methods it used to
catch Yeo.
Said CNB spokesman Amelia Oh 'CNB is aware that drug offenders use
various means to conduct their illegal activities and have come
across instances of some of them using the Internet to do so.
'Based on intelligence gathered and feedback received, CNB will
monitor channels of information, including chatrooms, to detect and
apprehend drug offenders.'
Unlike countries such as the United States and Canada, where
evidence gathered through 'excessive' entrapment can be thrown out
of court, evidence obtained through any method of entrapment is
lawful in Singapore.
Entrapment is often used when the authorities know an individual is
committing an offence, but cannot catch him in the act, said
retired police detective Lionel de Souza.
'It can be difficult to catch a person red-handed even if you
already have information that he is breaking the law.
'In the case of drug possession, you can invite him to meet you and
hope he arrives with drugs,' he said.
However, Yeo's lawyer, Mr Kertar Singh, argued that CNB officers
overstepped a boundary.
'Yes, the whole exercise is not illegal, but in all fairness what
was done by CNB was not appropriate.
'They went into the chatline and lured people in by saying certain
things. An innocent, naive person might find himself in this kind
of situation, then get caught,' he said.
According to Yeo's mitigation presented in court, he initially
refused the undercover officer's requests to meet him. While he
admitted to the officer he had drugs, he said they were for his own
consumption only.
Yeo finally accepted an invitation to meet Joe and Joe's boyfriend
for sex at the Bencoolen Street Hotel 81 on April 1. Joe told Yeo
he had some Ecstasy, and asked if Yeo had drugs. Yeo said he would
bring some.
While lawyers agree some entrapment is necessary for law
enforcement, they say officers should not tempt an otherwise
unwilling person to commit a crime.
'I don't think officers should be encouraging people to commit
offences. I'm very uncomfortable with that,' said Mr Peter Low,
chairman of the Law Society's criminal practice committee.
Mr Subhas Anandan, president of the Association of Criminal Lawyers
of Singapore, agreed.
'Of course, a certain degree of entrapment should be allowed,
otherwise you can't catch crooks. But they mustn't cross the
line.'
CNB did cross the line, in Mr Anandan's opinion, in a 2003 case in
which insurance agent Teo Ya Lin was pressed by an undercover CNB
officer to obtain an Ecstasy pill for him, promising to buy a big
policy from her in return. Teo got him a pill, for which she was
sentenced to six years and three months in jail.
'This girl had no intention of selling drugs until she was
repeatedly persuaded by the officer. She would not under normal
circumstances be a trafficker. The temptation is put forward,' said
Mr Anandan.
The veteran defence lawyer, who has personally seen three cases of
excessive entrapment in the past year, believes it is a growing
problem.
'It has come to a stage where people are talking about it. I can't
give figures offhand, but the number is enough to be a little bit
scary,' he said.
The Association of Criminal Lawyers plans to put the entrapment
issue to the Government in a paper it is preparing, which Mr
Anandan estimates will be ready in a month or two.
Mr Low said the Law Society is not currently looking into the issue
as it is working on capital punishment reform.
'However, entrapment law reform would be timely,' he said.
Both lawyers point out that entrapment laws were revised in 2001 in
Britain, on which Singapore models its legal system.
In an October 2001 landmark case, the House of Lords ruled that it
was 'simply not acceptable that the state, through its agents,
should lure its citizens into committing acts forbidden by the law
and then seek to prosecute them for doing so'.
The case involved Spencer Grant Looseley, who was approached
several times by an undercover police officer who tried to get him
to sell drugs.
Reform in Singapore may take a while yet, but Mr Anandan suggested
in the meantime, judges can indicate in their verdict their
dissatisfaction with the current entrapment laws, in the hope of
inspiring legislative change.
'Parliament must do something. For the judiciary, their hands are
tied as the law is very clear.'