Singapore Blasts Back at Clinton in Caning Case : Asia: Government stands by sentencing U.S. teen to flogging after he admitted vandalism. President called punishment extreme.

A war of words between the United States and Singapore over the sentencing of an American teen-ager to a flogging for vandalism heightened Tuesday with the government here disputing President Clinton’s comments on the case.

The teen-ager, Michael P. Fay of Dayton, Ohio, was sentenced last week to six strokes of a rattan cane and four months in prison after pleading guilty to two charges of spray-painting cars, two counts of mischief and possessing stolen property. He was also fined $2,230.

Fay, 18, who is free on $48,000 bail while his lawyers draft an appeal, has been checked into a local hospital because of depression, a court was told Tuesday.

He is believed to be the first American sentenced by a Singapore court to a caning, a form of flogging administered by a prison official trained in martial arts wielding a half-inch-thick cane. The punishment usually leaves scars.

Clinton told reporters in Washington on Monday that the U.S. government has filed a strong protest with the Singapore authorities over the sentence. “We recognize that they have a certain right to enforce their own criminal laws, but we believe that, based on the facts and the treatment of other cases, similar cases, that this punishment is extreme, and we hope very much that somehow it will be reconsidered,” Clinton said.

His remarks were not reported in the controlled Singapore press Tuesday. But in a statement, the Singapore Foreign Ministry replied to Clinton, saying, “The Singapore judicial process cannot apply different standards to persons subjected to the same law.” Without mentioning Clinton by name, the statement said the President’s remarks about the unequal application of the law were “not correct.”

The government here maintains that in the past five years, 14 men, ages 18 to 21, have received similar jail and caning sentences for vandalism.

Caning became a punishment in the vandalism statutes in the 1960s as the authoritarian government sought to restrict graffiti as a political weapon in the hands of opposition parties.

The government also denied allegations contained in a letter released in Dayton by the youth’s father, George Fay, that the confession young Fay gave to police last fall was coerced. The teen-ager lives in Singapore with his mother and stepfather.

In his letter, young Fay wrote to his father that he had been slapped in the face, denied sleep and threatened with a “whipping” if he didn’t sign a confession. Singapore law does not guarantee a right to silence, nor does it allow suspects to request a lawyer to be present during questioning. “I don’t know truly who did it, and everything that I admitted was a lie,” Michael reportedly said in the letter released by his father. Fay was read the charges in open court and admitted vandalizing the cars.