Those of you close to Australia would've heard about the 2008 arrest of Peter Lloyd in Singapore on charges of possession and selling Ice.

Peter was the highly-respected correspondent in South Asia for the ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation). He reported on numerous highly-traumatic events like the Boxing Day Tsunami, Bali Bombings, Karachi Motorcade Bombing and Afghanistan. He had also recently come out as a gay man.

What stunned people about his arrest was that he:

- Was in a highly-respected position with no criminal record whatsoever

- Would have been well aware of the consequences of drug crimes in Singapore (extremely harsh)

- Would've been on a $250k+ salary so the drug dealing charges didn't make sense

He had also recently come out as being gay. What happened next was...

- The drug dealing charges based on the allegations of another criminal were dropped. Kudos to the Singaporean police for a thorough investigation. He was charged only with possession.

- The ABC, did their best to support him. They funded some (not all) initial legal fees and some of the executives flew over to Singapore at their own personal expense to support him.

- His ex-wife came out in support of him.

- His partner, a Malay-Singaporean man working for Singapore Airlines came out in court to post bail for him. He was the only person who was legally eligible to post bail (long story why). They had only been going out a few months so it was quite an admirable thing to do, since by doing so, would be publicly outing himself as a homosexual in what is still a fairly conservative country. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/n ... 1117024451

- His defense team put forward a strong case arguing he was a man of good character and reputation with a successful career, excellent track record, lots of loved ones and no criminal record whatsoever but suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder brought on by his highly demanding job as a reporter.

- The Singaporean Judge gave him a surprisingly lenient jail sentence and he was out of jail within several months.

- The lenient sentence is amazing because Singapore is the last place you would expect anyone to get a lenient sentence for drugs charges...

- He is now back working for the ABC but no longer does war and disaster zones.

Anyway, he's just released an auto-biography recounting both this experience and his experience reporting on some of the region's worst disasters:

http://www.allenandunwin.com/default.as ... 1742373911

The much-anticipated and extraordinarily compelling account of Peter Lloyd's very public fall from grace on drug charges in Singapore.

Description
Two young men are at my flanks. A third is stepping from the shadows. I'm being mugged, I think. I'm being mugged in the low-crime capital of Asia.
It is July 2008 at 8pm and one of ABC-TV's best-known foreign correspondents, Peter Lloyd, is being arrested on the streets of Singapore. And so begins a dramatic and highly publicised ordeal.

In the years before this turning point in his life, it was Peter Lloyd doing the publicising. He had stood among the gruesome human wreckage laid out in an improvised outdoor mortuary after the Bali Bombing; joined Thailand's disaster recovery workers collecting the bloated flotsam of the Boxing Day Tsunami. And he was there for the worst atrocity in Pakistan's history, a shocking suicide bombing attempt on Benazir Bhutto's life, two months before she was finally assassinated.

These horrific events became the stuff of recurring nightmares, a private agony that took a huge toll and led to a personal disintegration.
After his arrest, Peter Lloyd became embroiled in Singapore's judicial system and, as Prisoner 12988, suffered the small and large humiliations of prison life. But he is far from bitter. He was supported by many of his ABC colleagues and by a network of close friends; he was comforted by his loving gay partner and by his tirelessly loyal former wife.
To survive in gaol, he entered it with the mindset of a seasoned journalist on assignment. He tells his Inside Story with compelling candour, great warmth and a very sharp wit.

About Peter Lloyd
Peter Lloyd was appointed the South Asia correspondent for the ABC in mid 2002. Based in New Delhi, Peter covered the South Asia nations of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and the Maldives. From 2002 to mid 2006 he was based in Bangkok reporting on South East Asian affairs in Thailand, Burma, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore and the Philippines. His compelling reports on the Bali bombings and later the Tsunami disaster earned several Walkely Award nominations.He joined the ABC in 1988, working in the Sydney television newsroom for three years before moving to Britain to work for the BBC and British Sky News.
I haven't read the book but some of the things he reveals in a recent, "Good Weekend Magazine" article are, "I was happily straight in Bangkok until I met someone, a guy [they met in Mumbai]. I had not struggled with being secretly gay. I was a happy hetero." (This one mystifies me...)

He also revelas how he came to be caught taking Ice:

- Apparently he came across it at a party, there were people doing it, he was offered and he decided... "rude to refuse"... to try it.

- It hit the spot and gave him a "period of clarity". For a few days he had none of the PTSD-related nightmares that had been plaguing him.

- Back in Singapore sometime later he was in hospital recovering from a procedure when he decided to buy some more of the drug, which had given him such clarity and freedom from the nightmares and PTSD symptoms...

- A short time later, his dealer was caught and his number came up on the dealer's phone. The police tracked him down.

Interesting, there's an old thread on it here: global-forum-f12/disturbing-arrest-singapore-could-you-t15421.html - Looks like "Chao Na" (Beach Bunny/Oops) was right... As flabbergasted as people who knew him were, the guy was guilty.