Retail magnate jailed,fined $17000 for buying kidney from Indonesian

Singapore, Sep 3 (UNI) A Singapore court has jailed local retail magnate Tang Wee Sung for a day and fined 17,000 dollars for agreeing to buy a kidney from an Indonesian.

Tang, chairman of the CK Tang group and departmental store in the fashionable Orchard Road, is the first person in Singapore to be prosecuted for kidney-for-sale offence.

The 55-year-old businessman had agreed to illegally buy a kidney for about 300,000 dollars. He had also lied to the Commissioner of Oaths that the kidney donor was his relative, the court heard.

A third charge of lying to the Mount Elizabeth Hospital's Transplant Ethics Committee was also taken into consideration in sentencing him.

Defence lawyer Cavinder Bull pleaded that 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.

The court also jailed 26-year old Indonesian Sulaiman Damanik, for three weeks for having agreed sell his kidney to Tang.

The middleman in the kidney deal, a 44-year old Wang Chin Sing, would be sentenced on Friday for having brokered the deal between Tang and Sulaiman.

UNI XC RJ AS1714