SINGAPORE: A Singaporean man who underwent
sex-change surgery before being convicted on drugs charges escaped
caning after a court recognised the change in gender, local media
reported Tuesday.
Preeta Nivashani M Rechnam, 40, was jailed on Monday
for seven years and three months for a second drugs offence but she
escaped caning as Singapore law dictates that women, and men over
the age of 50, cannot undergo the punishment.
Applied with a rattan cane and dating back to
British colonial rule, the punishment is typically imposed in
robbery, drugs and some sex cases and is denounced as inhumane by
rights groups.
The local newspaper said Rechnam had first been sentenced in 1998
to three strokes of the cane in addition to a jail sentence of five
years after being caught using morphine.
Following release, Rechnam went to Thailand in 2006 for sex-change
surgery but was rearrested last December for consuming
metamphetamines and heroin in Singapore's red-light district in the
company of two men.
If Rechnam had not undergone sex-change surgery, she could have
been sentenced to six to 12 strokes of the cane in addition to the
jail term for being a repeat offender.
A mug shot published in the newspapers Tuesday showed Rechnam
sporting a thick mop of hair that fell over her shoulders -- and
what appeared to be a stubble on the chin.
Lawyers interviewed by the papers said the judge's ruling was
likely to have been influenced by a medical report on Rechnam's
emotional and physical state.
Singapore law allows men who have undergone sex-reassignment
surgery to be recognised as women and marry men.
- AFP/ck