4 Yrs Jail for Stealing $5.1M Cos Religious Man. Fair?
<HR style="COLOR: #989898; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #989898" SIZE=1><!-- / icon and title --><!-- message --><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Priest Joachim Kang a free man now
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>He says tough jail time was 'sobering', wants to serve the Church again </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By K C Vijayan
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Father Joachim Kang, 61, spent four years behind bars, followed by nine months under a home detention scheme. He was jailed in 2004 and received a one-third remission on his sentence for good behaviour. He wants to discuss a possible future role with the Church. -- ST PHOTO: CAROLINE CHIA
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<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->AFTER serving more than 2,000 days of his sentence, convicted Catholic priest Joachim Kang became a free man yesterday. The former parish priest was put away in 2004 after embezzling $5.1 million in funds from St Teresa's Church in Kampong Bahru.
The amount included $1.5 million in shares entrusted to him by long-time friend Emily Chan.
<TABLE width=200 align=left valign="top"><TBODY><TR><TD class=padr8><!-- Vodcast --><!-- Background Story --><STYLE type=text/css>#related .quote { PADDING-RIGHT: 8px; PADDING-LEFT: 8px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 8px; MARGIN: 0px 0px 5px; PADDING-TOP: 8px; BACKGROUND-COLOR: #e7f7ff}#related .quote .headline { FONT-WEIGHT: bold; FONT-SIZE: 10px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; TEXT-TRANSFORM: uppercase; COLOR: #036; BORDER-BOTTOM: #007bff 3px double; FONT-FAMILY: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif}#related .quote .text { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; FONT-SIZE: 11px; PADDING-BOTTOM: 5px; COLOR: #036; PADDING-TOP: 5px}</STYLE>About the case
FATHER Joachim Kang was convicted in April 2004 of embezzling $5.1 million in church funds between 1994 and 2002.
He had used the money on stocks and property, claiming they were investments for the church.
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Breaking his silence for the first time since the saga broke six years ago, Father Kang said his arduous time behind bars was a 'sobering' experience.
'It has been one long, tedious odyssey of severe restrictions, deprivation and despair.
'I am glad it has come to an end but sadly, the painful memories have not been laid to rest,' he said.
The now 61-year-old spent about
four years behind bars, followed by nine months under the prison's home detention scheme, during which he was tagged. He worked then at law firm Colin Ng and Partners.
He was released from Changi Prison earlier with a one-third remission on his term due to good behaviour.
He declined to address any issues relating to his crime, but said the loss of freedom and friends was the greatest challenge that he had had to bear.
'All of a sudden, you find yourself in a huge cauldron alongside tattooed kidnappers, rapists, robbers, junkies, sexual deviants and many other colourful characters.
'You are marched from point to point every day. You are strip-searched time and time out of mind. Your letters are scrutinised right down to the last comma and full stop,' he said.
He said being kept in a cramped three-man cell only added to his pain, but the nine years of training in a seminary to become a priest, and the 'mortification practised for years and years', held him in good stead.
Before his days incarcerated, he had for 30 years ministered to the sick and dying, and buried the dead.
He anguished at the irony of not being able to do the same for his own mother, who died just six weeks before he was freed on home detention.
He said humour between his peers was one thing that kept his spirits up.
'Life was very, very difficult. You are confined, restricted and staring at the wall and at one another most of the time, and unless there is humour, it is going to be even harder.'
Not knowing how to say his name, some inmates took to calling him Cheok Kim in Hokkien , or 'pure gold', instead.
For the last three years of his prison sentence, Father Kang tutored the inmates in basic English.
While prayer, meditation and humour helped, he made clear he owed his 'sanity and survival to God, his family and friends who gave incredible and invaluable support'.
He added that the 'nightmare experience' in prison did not diminish his faith 'one jot' in the Church, or in any of the parishes he served.
Father Kang, who kept his vows as a priest while in prison, said he will sit down with the Church authorities to talk about any future role he may have.
He stressed that the Church had been his calling since he left school and was a life-long vocation.
Contacted yesterday on Father Kang's future role, the head of the Catholic Church here, Archbishop Nicholas Chia, said: 'We have not been notified yet. We will have to wait and see what happens.'
In a rare move, Father Kang had a reprieve in 2007 with a lift on his $8 million in assets, which were frozen by a court judge upon his conviction.
This was due to him repaying all the money claimed by the Catholic Church here and by Ms Emily Chan.
When asked about Ms Chan, who sued him after his guilty plea, he declined comment and said it was best to put everything behind now that it was all over, and to move on.
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