An Australian man who faces a possible 20 years in a Singapore jail for allegedly trafficking marijuana has jumped bail, authorities said on Tuesday.
Authorities have issued an arrest warrant for Michael Karras, 38, accused of trafficking in 495g of the drug, a Central Narcotics Bureau spokeswoman said on condition of anonymity because of department policy.
Karras, a musician reportedly from the city of Adelaide, failed to appear in court on May 9 for a pretrial hearing, his lawyer S.S. Dhillon said by telephone.
Karras' mother had provided the S$100,000 (US$64,950) needed to bail him out after his Jan. 9 arrest, Dhillon said.
Dhillon said the last time he saw his client was about a week before the hearing.
"I have not heard any news from him," Dhillon said, adding he did not know if Karras had fled the country.
Karras was arrested after anti-narcotics officers searched an eastern Singapore apartment the Australian shared with a 28-year-old Singaporean man, Ngo Pee Lin, who was also subsequently charged.
If found guilty of trafficking, both men face a maximum penalty of 20 years in jail and 15 strokes of the cane.
Singapore's execution of convicted Australian heroin trafficker Nguyen Tuong Van in December 2005 drew outrage from Australia's government and raised international appeals for the tightly controlled city-state to end the mandatory death penalty it imposes for some drug offenses.
Nguyen was arrested at Singapore's Changi Airport in 2002 while flying from Cambodia to the southern Australian city of Melbourne with 396g of heroin strapped to his back and in his carry-on luggage.
Singapore has some of the world's toughest drug laws, including death penalty for anyone caught with more than 15g of heroin or more than 500g of marijuana.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS