IT IS with great amusement that I have been following the story of Michael Fay and his efforts to avoid his sentence of caning at the hands of the Singaporean Judiciary. Is this not a tempest in a teapot? The facts: Fay was found guilty of an offence and sentenced accordingly; this decision has been upheld subsequently by the court of appeal.
Is caning brutal? Yes, but so is the death penalty - a punishment the American legal system has little trouble applying.
Further, is it not ironic that the American public should become so enraged by this while sitting by so passively when a Louisiana judge and jury acquitted a man of shooting a Japanese exchange student in the chest, killing him.
The student's offence: he accidentally wandered to the house of a trigger-happy man, mistaking it for the location of a high school house party.
Perhaps caning is the best thing for Fay. He broke the law and shall suffer the consequences of his actions.
Maybe now he will learn respect for the authority he so openly flaunts. SAMIE HARRISON Ap Lei Chau
