Caning only leave `bruises and marks'

Caning only leave `bruises and marks'

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Caning, the punishment ordered for American teenager Michael Fay following his vandalism conviction, does not cause "skin and flesh to fly" as alleged by critics, Singapore's Prisons Department said.

Responding to what it called misconceptions about caning in the foreign media, especially in the United States, the department told Singapore's Sunday Times newspaper that strokes of the cane did however leave bruises and marks.

This is the first time the department has given an account of caning since Fay, 18, was sentenced last month to six strokes of the cane and four months' jail for spray-painting cars.

Fay is now awaiting a government decision on his plea for clemency. President Bill Clinton has described the caning sentence as excessive.

The Sunday Times said that since Fay was sentenced foreign media had described caning as barbaric and given their own accounts of caning. It said one newspaper, New York Newsday, ran on April 20 "an obviously fabricated story of how caning is done here".