A Singaporean man has been sentenced to nearly four years in jail for attempting to seduce his estranged wife by planting marijuana in her car, despite knowing he could receive the death penalty for doing so.
Tan Xianglong, 37, was sentenced to three years and 10 months’ jail by the district court on Thursday, according to court documents.
The couple, who had been separated for less than two years, had sought a divorce but could not get one immediately because of the short duration of their relationship, the documents said.
Tan was angry at his wife because he felt she had not contributed enough financially to the marriage.
The documents say they consulted with attorneys and “came to the view that a divorce could occur if either party had a criminal record.”
He initially hired a private investigator to gather evidence that she was committing adultery, but found no proof.
This inspired Tan to devise a plan to trap his estranged wife, whereby he planted marijuana in her car – and told his girlfriend it was a “perfect plan”.
Tan had bought the drugs on the black market and weighed them at home and found they weighed 510 grams (18 ounces) – well above Singapore’s death penalty limit of 500 grams.
“He was aware through online research that the party involved (his wife) would be sentenced to death if convicted of trafficking more than 500 grams of marijuana,” court documents state.
“Yet he decided to go ahead with his plan because he was very angry with the party involved.”
However, laboratory analysis of the drugs showed that they contained only 216.17 grams of pure cannabis.
Tan was arrested after police found drugs in his wife’s car, but no other evidence was found against him.
The police then turned their investigation to Tan, who was later arrested.
The United Nations and human rights groups say the death penalty has no proven deterrent effect and have called for it to be abolished.
However, Singaporean officials say this has helped make the country one of the safest in Asia.
The death penalty in the city-state is carried out through hanging.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
