British journalist Alan Shadrake has been sentenced to six weeks in prison and fined SGD$20,000 by a Singapore court,

Shadrake, 76, was earlier found guilty of contempt of court after he claimed in his book “Once a Jolly Hangman” that the Singaporean judiciary was not impartial in its application of the death penalty. He has been granted seven days to appeal the sentence.

Index on Censorship chief executive John Kampfner commented: “Alan Shadrake’s sentence once again shows Singapore’s desperate difficulties in dealing with criticism and free expression.”