Last-Ditch Plea Against U.S. Teen’s Flogging Filed : Asia: Michael Fay signed ‘intensely personal’ appeal. But he has lost hope for clemency, his father says.

Lawyers for an American teen-ager facing a sentence of flogging made a last-resort appeal for clemency Wednesday, but his father said the youth has given up hope and is now preparing himself mentally for the punishment.

The 13-page appeal from Michael P. Fay, 18, of Dayton, Ohio, was sent by his lawyers to President Ong Teng Cheong for consideration. While the document was not released, defense lawyer Dominic Nagulendran said it was an “intensely personal” petition for clemency, which was signed by Fay in prison.

Fay was visited at the Queenstown Remand Prison on Tuesday by his mother, stepfather and girlfriend. They were allowed to meet in a visitors’ room divided by a plexiglass shield. Fay said he was being given medication, which his parents believed to be the anti-depressant drug Prozac and the sedative Valium.

According to diplomats and government officials, the president will probably refer the clemency question to the full Cabinet, which meets today, for consideration. It is unclear how soon a decision will be made.

But Singaporean officials have indicated that the government will not intervene in the judicial process.

Fay’s appeal against his sentence of six strokes of a rattan cane, four months’ imprisonment and a fine of $2,230 for spray-painting cars and other acts of mischief was turned down March 31 by the country’s chief justice, who said Fay had engaged in a “calculated course of criminal conduct.”

President Clinton called on Singaporean authorities for a third time to spare Fay from caning, saying the jail sentence imposed with the caning is “quite severe.” Clinton also said doubts had been raised about Fay’s confession to the vandalism and that it may have been coerced by the Singaporean police.

As Clinton’s remarks underlined, what began as a minor case of teen-age vandalism in this tightly ruled city-state has quickly mushroomed into an international cause celebre , the subject of countless talk shows, editorials and angry letters.

Some Americans, worried about their own neighborhoods, have applauded Singapore for taking a harsh line on crime, while others have condemned the government for a punishment they say amounts to torture.

Former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, patriarch of this nation of 3 million people, said the U.S. government and media have seized on the caning to ridicule Singapore, but he added that the furor reflects the United States’ own weak approach toward crime.

“The country dares not restrain or punish the individuals, forgiving them for whatever they’ve done,” he said. “That’s why the whole country is in chaos.”

In a clear sign that Singapore had no intention of showing clemency, Lee told reporters this week: “The punishment is not fatal. It is not painless. It does what it is supposed to do, to remind the wrongdoer that he should never do it again.”

Fay’s father, George, said in a telephone interview from the Dayton, Ohio, suburb of Kettering: “My son is doomed at the moment. The Singaporeans are going to carry this out regardless of how much pleading there is.”

George Fay, who spoke with his ex-wife after the prison visit, said Michael “is resigned to the fact that these guys will not give him clemency. He knows there is no hope. He is preparing himself for being caned.”

Fay’s mother said she still has a glimmer of hope and plans to present Ong with petitions containing thousands of names in support of the clemency plea.

The worldwide controversy centers on the caning, a holdover from the days of British colonial rule in which a moistened four-foot rattan cane is used by a prison official trained in martial arts to flog a prisoner on the bare buttocks.

While the prisoner is restrained in a wooden trestle and protected against spine and kidney injuries with padding, the caning can send a prisoner into shock and cause permanent scarring.

Fay would be the first American ever flogged in Singapore. According to research conducted by the State Department, the vandalism law, enacted in the 1960s to deal with the problem of political graffiti being sprayed on public buildings, has never before been used to punish anyone for vandalizing private cars.

Fay’s father is also continuing to raise the issue of whether his son was forced to confess to the spray-painting of cars by police mistreatment during nine days of detention last year.

The Singaporean government said it has investigated the charges of police mistreatment and that it could find no evidence to support them.

Initially, nine youths were arrested on charges of spray-painting cars and throwing eggs.