A 29-year-old man, who is a Singaporean by birth was sentenced to 6 months imprisonment after he returned to Singapore 10 years after defaulting on his National Service (NS) obligation.
The man, Vin Lau Jun Sheng had been living in Hong Kong since then but chose to return to Singapore recently after his business in the special administrative region of China was affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.
As reported by CNA, Lau knew that he would be arrested and given a jail sentence when he returned to Singapore but after discussing the matter with his wife, he decided that going back to the country is the ‘best option’.
Lau’s mother is Singaporean while his father is a Hong Kong citizen but his parents divorced in 1997 when he was 3 years old. Lau then stayed with his father in Hong Kong while his mother remained in Singapore.
Given that he was born in Singapore, Lau was obligated to NS and was told of the obligation by his mother but he didn’t bother to find out more as he wanted to continue staying in Hong Kong with his father.
In November 2009, Lau’s mother successfully applied for an exit permit on his behalf for overseas studies, with the exit permit vail until July 2010.
Lau continued staying in Hong Kong even after his exit permit expired and when he registered for NS in September 2010, his mother applied to the Central Manpower Base for deferment, pending Lau’s renunciation of Singapore citizenship. However, Ā the application was incomplete as Lau’s mother did not submit certain required documents.
Singapore authorities then sent further letters telling Lau to report to the Central Manpower Base, but during that time, Lau cut off contact with his mother, hence his mother told the authorities that he refused to return to Singapore. A police gazette and blacklist were subsequently raised against Lau.
In 2020, Lau reconnected with his mother via Facebook and told her that he is now married and has one child. As his business was affected by the pandemic, he decided to return to Singapore so that his family can obtain Singapore citizenship and settle down in the country.
He then returned to Singapore on 3 October 2020, served a mandatory 14-day stay-home notice enforced during the pandemic and reported to the Central Manpower Base on 20 October 2020. Lau has since completed his NS.
However, his defaulting of NS 10 years prior is still an offence and authorities’ investigations found that he remained outside Singapore without a valid exit permit for more than a decade.
During the trial, the prosecution argued that Lau’s voluntary surrender was a ‘tactical’ move as it was unlikely that it was borne out of genuine remorse. Lau’s surrender was branded as motivated by his personal interests.
With his 6-month imprisonment, Lau is the 22nd defaulter to be sentenced to jail since the Singapore High Court set out the sentencing framework for NS defaulters in 2017.
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