Former transport minister Iswaran to serve remaining sentence at home

Former transport minister S Iswaran has been placed on home detention as of Friday (Feb 7).

Iswaran will serve the remaining eight months of his one-year sentence at home, under specific conditions.

These include curfew monitoring using an electronic monitoring tag, being gainfully occupied either in work, study or training, and reporting to the Singapore Prison Service (SPS) for counselling.

"He has been assessed suitable for emplacement on the scheme, as he is of low risk of re-offending, did not commit any institutional offence in prison, and has strong family support," a SPS spokesperson said in response to AsiaOne's queries.

Under the Prisons Act, inmates who display good conduct in prison are eligible for remission after serving either two-thirds or 14 days of their sentence, whichever ends later.

A prisoner is also eligible to be released on the home detention scheme for a period not exceeding 12 months if they are serving a sentence of four weeks or more and have served at least 14 days of their sentence.

Factors such as their conduct, as well as their progress and response to rehabilitation during their time in prison, are taken into account when accessing eligibility for home detention, said SPS.

In 2024, about 44 per cent of the inmates eligible for home detention were placed on the scheme, SPS added.

Pleaded guilty to 5 charges

On Sept 24 last year, Iswaran pleaded guilty to four charges under Section 165 of the Penal Code, which forbids all public servants from obtaining any valuable thing from someone involved with them in an official capacity

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He was accused of obtaining items worth more than $400,000 from Ong Beng Seng, billionaire hotelier and chairman of Formula One (F1) race promoter Singapore GP, as well as David Lum, managing director of mainboard-listed construction company Lum Chang Holdings.

The items included tickets to F1 races, football matches and musical shows allegedly obtained from Ong, and bottles of whisky, golf clubs and a Brompton bicycle allegedly obtained from Lum.

Iswaran also pleaded guilty to one charge of obstructing justice by belatedly repaying the cost of a flight to Doha.

Another 30 charges under Section 165 were taken into consideration during sentencing.

Iswaran resigned from office in January 2024 and made a voluntary disgorgement — the giving up of illegally obtained goods — amounting to $380,305.95.

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bhavya.rawat@asiaone.com