Tang Wee Sung to be sentenced next Wednesday for organ trading
By May Wong, Channel NewsAsia | Posted: 27 August 2008 1524 hrs

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SINGAPORE: Singapore retail magnate Tang Wee Sung will be sentenced on September 3 for his role in the country's first kidney-for-sale case.

He pleaded guilty to two of three charges on Wednesday. The first charge is for agreeing to buy a kidney and the other, for lying to the Commissioner of Oaths.

The third charge - of lying to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital's Transplant Ethics Committee - will be taken into consideration in sentencing.

Tang is the first person in Singapore to be prosecuted for such an offence.

In his mitigation plea, his lawyer Cavinder Bull urged the judge to impose a fine for the first charge.

For the second charge, he said a conditional discharge should be sufficient. This means Tang must not commit any offences during a 12-month period.

Alternatively, if the judge objects to that, Mr Bull said a one-day jail sentence would be appropriate.

The lawyer also cited foreign organ trading cases in countries like Japan and South Africa, saying the recipients of kidney transplants were not sent to jail.

So there is no reason to believe that the situation should be more harsh in Singapore, he said.

On its part, the prosecution is calling for a fine of S$10,000 for the first charge and a "very short" jail sentence for the second.

It said the recipient is just as guilty as the donor and if there is no demand, there would be no supply.

Mr Bull also laid out several arguments for an appropriate sentence for his client.

He said Tang was driven by pure desperation to commit the offence as he suffers not just from end-stage renal failure, but other medical problems such as diabetes and coronary artery disease.

Mr Bull said that with such dire medical condition, the 55-year-old is already facing a sentence far greater than any the Court can pass.

Other mitigation factors included how Tang had no intention to exploit the poor and socially disadvantaged, that he never received a kidney in the end and that he was also a victim of organ trading.

But the prosecution argued that Tang's desperation does not totally absolve him from deliberately breaking the law.

The two Indonesian men involved in the kidney-for-sale case were last month sentenced to jail and fined.

- CNA/ir