SINGAPORE - Five more men have been charged with having sex with an underage prostitute, Singapore's second such case in recent years.
The Chinese nationals were hauled to court yesterday, bringing the total number of alleged customers of the teenager to 24.
Her alleged pimp, Tang Huisheng, 37, has also been charged and is due to stand trial later this month.
He is accused of procuring the 17-year-old Chinese national for prostitution, living on immoral earnings and managing a contact point for prostitutes.
The teenager was arrested in Geylang in June, two weeks after she came to Singapore to work as a prostitute.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that four of her customers charged earlier have already been handed sentences of between 11 and 12 weeks.
Her case follows the recent high-profile underage vice ring scandal involving another 17-year-old, a Singaporean. That led to at least 20 men being convicted.
They included society figures such as Howard Shaw, the grandson of the founder of cinema giant Shaw Organisation.
By contrast, the men charged yesterday in the latest case are mostly construction workers or drivers.
Li Weichao, 42, was slapped with two charges. Li Zhiguang, 47, Wu Delong, 35, Yang Dong, 36, and Sun Xinjian, 36, all face one charge each.
The four other customers who have already been convicted all received their jail terms over the past two months.
Chinese nationals Liu Shouyong, 41, and Wang En Yuan, 41, were each sentenced to 12 weeks in prison, as was Malaysian hawker Tai Meng Wang, 53. Zhou Minfeng, 47, another Chinese national, was given an 11-week term.
Sun, who was charged yesterday, faces separate charges over a fatal accident in Clementi.
In the Nov 6 incident, a pedestrian, Mr Sivaprakash S. Pathmanathan, 27, was knocked down and killed at a junction.
Sun pleaded not guilty to causing death by dangerous driving. He is also accused of injuring the victim's 24-year-old cousin and another woman, aged 45. His case was adjourned to Oct 28.
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