Updated: 08/16/2013 13:26 | By Channel NewsAsia
Vietnamese wife gets jail term while searching for husband in S'pore
SINGAPORE: A Vietnamese wife who was searching for her husband in Singapore has landed herself in jail after violating immigration rules.
Nguyen Thi Mac Phuc was sentenced to a year's jail for entering Singapore in December 2012 without the permission of the Controller of Immigration.
The 27-year-old needed the controller's permission to come to Singapore as she overstayed in 2010 and was repatriated.
The court heard that the accused was worried and wanted to locate her Vietnamese husband in December last year.
She paid a man US$1,500 to enter Malaysia via Cambodia and Thailand by hiding in a lorry.
When she arrived in Malaysia, she was instructed to hide in a cargo container and managed to get to Singapore.
The accused was arrested in April this year at a chalet in East Coast Parkway by immigration officers.
In pleading for leniency, the defence said the accused was anxious about the whereabouts of her husband, Tran Dinh Hieu, so she came looking for him.
Tran Dinh Hieu is currently serving a 16-month sentence for customs and immigration offences and will be released in January 2014.
The couple has a five-year-old daughter.
The defence stressed that there is no one to take care of the child, and urged the court to give the minimum sentence of 12 months' jail.
The court has allowed Nguyen Thi to visit her husband for one last time in early September, before she starts serving her sentence. - CNA/xq
