Australian TV journalist freed from Singapore jail
Jun 22, 2009

SINGAPORE (AFP) — An Australian television journalist has been freed from a Singapore jail after serving nearly seven months of his 10-month sentence for drug offences, a prison spokeswoman said.

Peter Lloyd, the former New Delhi-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was jailed on December 2 after pleading guilty to three drug charges.

"It is confirmed that he was released today," a spokeswoman for Singapore's Changi Prison told AFP without giving details.

A legal source said prisoners who behave well usually have their sentences cut by one third.

Judge Hamidah Ibrahim sentenced Lloyd to eight months for possessing 0.41 grams (0.014 ounces) of the stimulant methamphetamine and another eight months for consuming it. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.

Lloyd received an additional two months in jail for possessing drug paraphernalia stained with ketamine, an anaesthetic commonly used at dance parties.

Singapore's attorney general earlier withdrew a charge of trafficking 0.15 grams of methamphetamine, an offence that carries a prison term of between five and 20 years as well as five to 15 strokes of the cane.

It was unclear whether Lloyd would return to Australia.

Lloyd was arrested while on holiday in Singapore on July 16 last year.

His lawyer had argued that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress because of his work as a journalist covering wars and disasters in Asia, including the 2002 bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali.

Lloyd took methamphetamine as a way of dealing with nightmares caused by the tragedies he had covered, his lawyer had said.

Singapore, one of Asia's safest cities, follows an uncompromising line against drugs and other crimes. Trafficking certain amounts of drugs is punishable by death, a sentence carried out by hanging.

Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved