A Japanese man has been sentenced by a Singaporean court to over 17 years in prison, and caning for raping an intoxicated university student in 2019.
According to BBC on Tuesday, a Singaporean court sentenced a 38-year-old Japanese hairdresser who sexually assaulted an intoxicated woman and filmed the scene with his mobile phone, to 17.5 years in prison and 20 strokes of caning.
He is set to be the first Japanese national to be caned in the city-state.
According to court documents, the man met the woman in the Clarke Quay area, a famous nightlife district, in December 2019. He then took the intoxicated woman to his flat and raped her. He also filmed the act on his mobile phone and later sent it to his friend.
The court called the assault “brutal and cruel,” adding that the victim was “vulnerable, clearly drunk, and incapable of defending herself,” as it explained the reason for the harsh punishment.
The judge also dismissed the man’s claim that the victim consented to sex.
Caning is a widely used form of corporal punishment in Singapore and is compulsory for offenses like vandalism, robbery, and drug trafficking.
Caning targets men aged between 16 and 50 and is carried out up to 24 times with a cane that measures about 4.9 ft long and no more than half an inch in diameter.
The practice drew international attention in 1994 when 19-year-old U.S. citizen Michael Fay was sentenced to six strokes of the cane for vandalism of public property.
Despite a personal appeal from then-U.S. President Bill Clinton, Singapore authorities went ahead, and Fay was unable to avoid the caning.
