The Southeast Asian city-state, whose economy is heavily
dependent on trade, manufacturing and financial services, said
gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 1.8 percent in
January-March on a quarter-on-quarter, seasonally adjusted and
annualised rate, much better than the advance estimate of a 1.4
percent contraction.

The expansion, which handily beat the forecasts of all
economists polled by Reuters, was due to a 50.6 percent
quarterly surge in finance and insurance that more than offset a
12.3 percent contraction in manufacturing.

The surprisingly positive GDP numbers were followed by data
that showed industrial production rose 4.7 percent in April from
a year ago, also beating analysts’ expectations, as electronics
gained 1.1 percent and pharmaceuticals surged 48.0 percent.

Singapore, a key Asian financial centre, has been grappling
with slow growth and relatively high inflation in recent years
amid weakness in key export markets as well as tighter local
restrictions on foreign workers that have raised costs and made
it harder for successful firms to expand.

Non-oil domestic exports, a measure of the manufacturing
sector’s health since Singapore exports most of what it
produces, had declined in the preceding three quarters amid
persistent weakness in global demand.

Chua Hak Bin, Southeast Asia economist at Bank of America
Merrill Lynch, said the labour restrictions have hit Singapore
manufacturers a lot harder and there is a de-coupling between
manufacturing and services.

“Singapore’s weakness has been overstated because a lot of
data that people look at is manufacturing-related… But loan
growth bottomed in the fourth quarter of last year and trading
activity is up, driven by the surge in global liquidity,” he
said.

Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry reiterated its
growth forecast of 1-3 percent for 2013 and said it expects the
economy to improve gradually over the course of the year, even
as a widely followed index showed China’s factory activity
shrank for the first time in seven months in May.

Manufacturing accounts for about 20 percent of GDP while
financial services contribute around 12 percent.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected GDP shrank 1.1
percent on the quarter and 0.5 percent on-year, slightly better
than the government’s advance estimates of contractions of 1.4
percent and 0.6 percent, respectively.

TRADING, INFLATION

Ong Chong Tee, deputy managing director at the Monetary
Authority of Singapore, the city-state’s central bank, said
during a media briefing that the “risk on” environment boosted
trading in stocks and foreign exchange during the first quarter.

“Market sentiment is positive and should therefore hold up
the sector in the near term… A lot will depend on global
markets,” he said, when asked if the financial sector rebound
was sustainable.

Investment banking and wealth management also performed
better during the quarter, he added.

Singapore on Thursday also reported that headline inflation
eased to 1.5 percent year-on-year in April, the lowest in more
than three years, as falling car prices and government rebates
for service and conservancy charges kept a lid on prices.

Economists had expected inflation to ease to 3.1 percent
last month from 3.5 percent in March.

Core inflation, which excludes car prices and housing rents
which are more affected by government policies, slowed to 1.4
percent from 1.7 percent in March due to a slower rise in
service costs and a larger decline in the prices of oil-related
items.

However, the central bank said that “domestic cost pressures
are expected to persist amid continuing tightness in the labour
market, and cost pass-through to prices of consumer services
could pick up slightly”.

MAS’s Ong said in the briefing before the release of April
consumer price index data that monthly core inflation is likely
to edge up to 2 percent year-on-year towards the end of the
year, even as headline inflation eases.

Core inflation averaged 1.5 percent between January and
April.

MAS said on April 30 that headline inflation could average
below 3 percent for the rest of 2013, easing to levels last seen
three years ago as the recent fall in oil prices and government
measures to rein in car prices take effect.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim; Additional reporting by Saeed Azhar
and Anshuman Daga; Editing by Kim Coghill)

In a statement issued through their lawyers, Rick and Mary Todd said they had lost confidence in the system investigating the death of their 31-year-old son, Shane, who was found hanging in his Singapore apartment last June.

The Todds did not appear in court on Wednesday, the day after a U.S. medical examiner they had hired retracted an earlier statement that Shane Todd had been garroted.

They walked out of the hearing later on Tuesday after the presiding coroner refused their request to delay testimony by a witness so that they could go through it.

“We no longer have confidence in the transparency and the fairness of the system. It appears to us that the outcome has been pre-determined,” the Todds said in the statement read out by their lawyer, Gloria James-Civetta.

Singapore police have said Todd probably committed suicide.

His parents believe he was murdered, possibly because of what they said was his involvement in a project between Singapore’s Institute of Microelectronics (IME) and Chinese telecommunications giant Huawei. Todd had previously worked for the institute.

His death has become a political issue, with U.S. Senator Max Baucus, who represents Todd’s home state of Montana, pressing for more American involvement in the investigation.

Under Singapore law, a coroner’s inquiry is needed for deaths that are not a result of illness. The state will present evidence and family members are allowed to question witnesses either directly or through their lawyers.

During the inquiry, which began on May 13, Singapore government lawyers presented forensic reports that showed Shane Todd had died by hanging based on injuries around his neck.

Their findings were backed by two U.S. pathologists, who said the manner of death pointed to suicide.

U.S. medical examiners, besides reporting on the injury, are also required to provide an opinion about the cause of death.

Edward Adelstein, the U.S. medical examiner hired by the Todds, said during cross-examination on Tuesday he had based his earlier finding of garroting based on photographs provided by the Todds.

Testifying via Skype, Adelstein said he had not physically examined the body.

He also said on Tuesday he had changed his mind about the cause of death after reviewing evidence provided by Singapore authorities that showed no signs of broken blood vessels in the neck, consistent with strangulation by wire or cord.

However, Adelstein insisted that Todd was probably dead before he was hanged from a door in his apartment after being “tasered” or strangled in a “carotid armlock”. He also said he could not show any evidence to support that.

The Todds’ belief their son was murdered stemmed from documents on a hard disk drive they said they found in his apartment. He had been researching an advanced semiconductor material called Gallium Nitride (GaN).

Both Todd’s former employer IME and Huawei said they did not proceed beyond initial discussions into a possible project involving GaN, which can be used in equipment ranging from mobile phone base stations to military radars.

Huawei has been blocked from some projects in Australia and is deemed a security risk by the U.S. Congress on the grounds that its equipment could be used for spying.

(Editing by Paul Tait)

State Grid will buy 19.9 percent of electricity supplier SP
Ausnet for A$824 million, and 60 percent of energy
infrastructure company SPI (Australia) Assets Pty Ltd (SPIAA)
for an undisclosed amount, Temasek unit Singapore Power
said on Friday.

The deal may signal a retreat by Singaporean state-linked
firms from Australia, where they have spent billions of dollars
over the past few years on telecoms, energy and real estate
assets, leaving room for the acquisitive State Grid.

“The proposed investments by State Grid are two of the most
significant power asset deals in Australia. They reflect the
strength of the Australian power sector, and in particular the
attractiveness to investors of a transparent and stable
regulatory regime,” said Anna Collyer of Allens law firm, which
along with Linklaters advised State Grid on the deal.

SP AusNet, listed in Australia and Singapore, held assets
worth A$10 billion as at end-March 2013. SPIAA, which uses the
trading name Jemena and owns electricity and gas distribution
networks, has assets of around A$8.9 billion, according to
Allens and Linklaters.

The Australian Financial Review estimated the two deals are
worth over A$5 billion.

China’s cash-rich power groups have been scooping up
overseas assets in recent years to offset their low-yielding
domestic operations. State Grid, ranked seventh on the Fortune
Global 500 list in 2012 with revenue of approximately US$300
billion, has already established a presence in Australia, the
Philippines, Brazil and Portugal.

State Grid is also interested in acquiring a stake in New
Zealand’s second-biggest electricity and gas distributor Powerco
Ltd, according to a source with knowledge of the
matter.

In other signs of Singapore’s withdrawal from Australia,
Singapore Telecommunications Ltd is mulling the
potential sale of its Optus Satellite business in a deal that
could be worth at least A$2 billion. CapitaLand Limited
, meanwhile, is undertaking a strategic review of its
A$1 billion stake in Australand Property Group.

Credit Suisse Group AG and Lazard Ltd
advised Singapore Power while Goldman Sachs Group Inc and
Macquarie Group Ltd advised the Chinese group.

SP AusNet, listed in Australia and Singapore, owns and
operates electricity and gas distribution assets in Australia’s
southeastern Victoria state, including the state-wide
electricity transmission network.

Singapore Power said it would continue to hold a 31.1
percent stake in SP AusNet, which would remain publicly listed.
An SP Ausnet representative declined to comment beyond what was
said in the company’s press release.

SP AusNet’s Australia-listed shares climbed almost 2 percent
to A$1.30 on Friday, having gained more than 17 percent this
year.

Both transactions announced on Friday are subject to
approvals from Australia’s Foreign Investment Review Board
(FIRB), the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, and
China’s National Development and Reform Commission.

The FIRB examines all investment from state enterprises to
make sure they are genuine commercial deals and are in line with
Australia’s national interests. An approval in this case would
likely as the assets were already foreign-held.

State Grid late last year bought a 41 percent stake in the
unlisted South Australian electricity supplier ElectraNet from
the Queensland state government’s Powerlink.
($1 = 1.0146 Australian dollars)
($1 = 1.2510 Singapore dollars)

(Additonal reporting by Saeed Azhar and Denny Thomas; Editing
by Stephen Coates)

The Southeast Asian city-state, keen to avoid the kind of
onslaught on tax cheats being waged against Switzerland, said it
will sign up to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and
Development’s (OECD) multilateral treaty on sharing tax details.

Singapore is expected to sign the Convention on Mutual
Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters some time this year.

The government also plans to change the law so the tax
office, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore, will not need
a court order to get information from banks and trust companies
sought by foreign governments, a joint statement by the central
bank, the finance ministry and the tax authority said.

“This is a very significant move,” the director of the
OECD’s Centre for Tax Policy, Pascal Saint-Amans, told Reuters
in an email.

“Their signing of the multilateral convention is also
impressive and shows the move towards transparency is really
global with a key player like Singapore taking that initiative.”

Singapore’s move comes as the Group of 20 leading economies
(G20) is pushing for all countries to improve the way they share
tax information.

Governments in Europe and in the United States have been
stepping up their efforts to clamp down on tax evasion as they
try to deal with rising levels of public debt.

“These changes we are now making are a major enhancement, in
step with the strengthening of international standards for
exchange of information,” said Tharman Shanmugaratnam,
Singapore’s deputy prime minister and minister for finance.

“There is no conflict between high standards of financial
integrity and keeping our strengths as a centre for managing
wealth.”

FINALISING FATCA AGREEMENT

Singapore, which hosts offices of the world’s biggest banks,
will adopt the OECD standards on information sharing in all of
its existing bilateral tax agreements that do not already
contain them, as long as it gets reciprocity.

Once the OECD-related measures are fully in place, Singapore
will meet the international standards on tax information sharing
with up to 83 different jurisdictions, up from the current 41.
Those new countries include the United States and Brazil.

Singapore’s tax authority said in April it had provided
information concerning more than 300 requests from countries
with which it has tax agreements that met the OECD standards.

Around 45 countries have already signed the OECD’s
multilateral convention, although Singapore’s rival wealth
management centres Switzerland and Hong Kong have not.

Singapore also announced it plans to finalise an agreement
with the United States on the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
(FATCA), a rule that forces foreign banks and other financial
institutions to tell the U.S. government about accounts they
hold for Americans with more than $50,000 in them.

The city-state said it plans to adopt a “Model 1″ type
agreement so that banks can provide the details of American
account holders to the Singapore tax authority, which will then
pass the information to the United States.

Singapore is already bringing in stricter rules that compel
financial institutions to identify accounts they strongly
suspect hold the proceeds of fraudulent or wilful tax evasion
and, where necessary, to close them before July 1.

After that date, handling the proceeds of tax evasion will
be a criminal offence under changes to Singapore’s anti-money
laundering law.

“Emerging Asia is potentially susceptible to the ‘middle-income trap,’ a phenomenon whereby economies risk stagnation at middle-income levels and fail to graduate into the ranks of advanced economies,” the IMF said in its latest Regional Economic Outlook for Asia and the Pacific.

“MIEs (middle-income economies) in Asia are less exposed to the risk of a sustained growth slowdown than MIEs in other regions. However, their relative performance is weaker on institutions,” the international funding agency said.

IMF’s warning about the emerging risks faced by Asian countries come at time when the region looks set to lead a global economic recovery as risks from a meltdown in Europe recede.

“While the external risk of severe economic fallout from an acute euro area crisis has diminished, regional risks are coming into clearer focus. These include some ongoing buildup of financial imbalances and rising asset prices,” the IMF said.

IMF was monitoring credit ratios and output levels in Asia closely as conditions can worsen very quickly, the fund’s director for Asia and Pacific region, Anoop Singh, told reporters at a briefing in Singapore.

He said regional authorities needed to respond early and decisively to potential overheating.

IMF, which recently cut its 2013 and 2014 growth forecasts for Greater China, India, South Korea and Singapore but raised its outlook for Malaysia and the Philippines, nevertheless sounded generally positive about near-term prospects.

“Growth in Asia is likely pick up gradually in the course of 2013, to about 5.75 percent, on strengthening external demand and continued robust domestic demand,” it said.

ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS, JAPAN

The IMF said India, the Philippines, China and Indonesia needed to improve their economic institutions while India, the Philippines and Thailand were also exposed to a larger risk of growth slowdown stemming from sub-par infrastructure.

Malaysia and China were the highest-ranked developing Asian countries in an IMF chart measuring institutional strength while Indonesia, India and the Philippines were at the bottom.

IMF defined institutional strength as demonstrating higher political stability, better bureaucratic capability, fewer conflicts and less corruption.

For many developing Asian economies, there remains ample room for easing stringent regulations in product and, in some cases, labor markets, the fund added.

The IMF also said various statistical approaches indicate that trend growth rates have slowed in both China and India

For China, trend growth appears to have peaked at around 11 percent in 2006-07, while India’s trend growth is now around 6-7 percent compared with about 8 percent prior to the financial crisis.

“By contrast, trend growth for most ASEAN countries seems to have remained stable or to have increased somewhat, with the notable exception of Vietnam,” the fund said.

ASEAN is the acronym for the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations whose members include Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Myanmar.

Turning to Japan, Singh said the IMF “welcomed” Japanese efforts to stimulate its economy, and said quantitative easing was just part of a package of measures that included cutting debt and embarking of structural reforms such as increasing female participation in the workforce.

“In Japan, we have welcomed the measures taken. It’s because they are focused on addressing the deflation that has affected Japan for the last 10-15 years.”

“As Japan moves back to sustainable positive growth, it’s going to help the region and the global economy and that is the most important,” he said.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim; Editing by Kim Coghill)

Japan’s efforts to stimulate its economy through monetary
easing is likely to be “mostly good” for developing Asian
economies such as Thailand and the Philippines, which produce
components for Japanese exporters, the World Bank said.

The Bank of Japan on April 4 stunned markets by unveiling a
monetary expansion campaign with plans to inject about $1.4
trillion into the economy over two years to break a deflationary
cycle and end two decades of stagnation. The unprecedented
easing has provided fresh momentum to yen bears, with the dollar
tapping a four-year high of 99.95 yen on Thursday.

The BOJ’s radical monetary plan, which even eclipsed the
U.S. Federal Reserve’s massive quantitative easing program, has
caused worries about a wall of money moving into emerging
markets and other economies in search of higher returns,
potentially stoking inflation and asset bubbles.

However, Bert Hofman, World Bank chief economist for East
Asia and Pacific, was sanguine about the BOJ’s ambitious goal.

“Japan is trying to get out of this low spend, deflationary
environment… If that works, that is good for the world
economy, and good for the region. It means a large economy may
start growing again,” Hofman told at a media briefing.

The World Bank, in its latest East Asia and Pacific Update,
cut its gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for China
by 0.1 percentage point to 8.3 percent for 2013, citing
Beijing’s ongoing efforts to restructure its economy.

The revision was made before China earlier on Monday
reported slower-than-expected 7.7 percent year-on-year growth in
the first quarter, which was below the World Bank’s own
forecast, Hofman said.

The international lender also lowered its forecast for
Indonesia to 6.2 percent from 6.3 percent due to an expected
moderation in investment growth, but raised its growth outlook
for Thailand and Malaysia.

Overall, the World Bank expects developing East Asia to grow
by 7.8 percent this year, below its December estimate of 7.9
percent but faster than last year’s 7.5 percent.

“Our growth forecasts for EAP (East Asia and the Pacific)
for 2013 and 2014 remain roughly similar to those of December
last year. We expect that with improving external conditions and
strong domestic demand, regional growth will rise moderately to
7.8 percent in 2013 and then adjust back to 7.6 percent in 2014
and 2015,” it said.

INFLATION, ASSET BUBBLE RISKS

The World Bank tempered its more benign outlook about
conditions in the West with a call for Asian governments to
start reining in the supportive monetary and fiscal policies
that had been adopted in the aftermath of the financial crisis,
echoing concerns raised by the Asian Development Bank last week.

“Countercyclical demand policies have helped sustain growth,
but they may now risk stoking inflationary pressures and
amplifying the credit and asset price risks that are emerging in
the context of strong capital inflows into the region,” the
World Bank said.

While the bulk of capital flows into China and Indonesia
comprise foreign direct investments that are not easily
reversible, portfolio flows are sizable in Malaysia where they
comprising 6.4 percent of GDP in 2012 on a net basis, up from
2.9 percent of GDP in 2011.

“Maintaining an appropriate macroeconomic stance and
sufficient flexibility in the exchange rate and applying
macroprudential measures to ensure these flows do no fuel asset
bubbles are priorities,” it added.

The World Bank said that continued depreciation of the yen
posed challenges for developed Asian countries such as Korea,
which competed directly with Japan in many export markets.

In contrast, many developing Asian economies produced inputs
used by Japanese industry. Japanese investments in these
countries could increase, helping build productive capacity and
boost potential output, it said.

Larger East Asian economies such as China, Indonesia,
Malaysia and the Philippines may be reaching the limits of their
current productive capacity, the World bank said in its report.

It added that price pressures are mounting in China,
although the headline rate remains under the central bank target
of 3.5 percent, while inflation is building up rapidly in
Indonesia.

The World Bank sounded a warning on rising debt levels in
countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and China.

While China’s general government debt stood at 22.2 percent
in 2012, up from 19.6 percent five years ago, non-financial
corporate debt has jumped to 126.4 percent of GDP from 113.6
percent in 2007. Household debt equal 29.2 percent of GDP in
China, up more than 10 percentage points from 2007, the World
Bank added.

“More significant than the growth of government debt has
been the expansion in corporate and household debt… The sum of
general government, non-financial corporate and household debt
now exceeds 150 percent of GDP in Malaysia, Thailand and China,”
the World Bank said.

The global lender, in its latest East Asia and Pacific Update, cut its gross domestic product (GDP) growth projection for China by 0.1 percentage point to 8.3 percent for 2013, citing Beijing’s ongoing efforts to restructure its economy.

It also lowered its forecast for Indonesia to 6.2 percent from 6.3 percent due to an expected moderation in investment growth, but raised its growth outlook for Thailand and Malaysia.

Overall, the World Bank expects developing East Asia to grow by 7.8 percent this year, below its December estimate of 7.9 percent but faster than last year’s 7.5 percent.

“Our growth forecasts for EAP (East Asia and the Pacific) for 2013 and 2014 remain roughly similar to those of December last year. We expect that with improving external conditions and strong domestic demand, regional growth will rise moderately to 7.8 percent in 2013 and then adjust back to 7.6 percent in 2014 and 2015,” it said.

Please click on for the World Bank’s latest growth estimates for developing East Asia and the Pacific.

INFLATION, ASSET BUBBLE RISKS

The World Bank, however, tempered its more benign outlook about conditions in the West with a call for Asian governments to start reining in the supportive monetary and fiscal policies that had been adopted in the aftermath of the financial crisis, echoing concerns raised by the Asian Development Bank last week.

“Countercyclical demand policies have helped sustain growth, but they may now risk stoking inflationary pressures and amplifying the credit and asset price risks that are emerging in the context of strong capital inflows into the region,” the World Bank said.

While the bulk of capital flows into China and Indonesia comprise foreign direct investments that are not easily reversible, portfolio flows are sizable in Malaysia where they comprising 6.4 percent of GDP in 2012 on a net basis, up from 2.9 percent of GDP in 2011.

“Maintaining an appropriate macroeconomic stance and sufficient flexibility in the exchange rate and applying macro prudential measures to ensure these flows do no fuel asset bubbles are priorities,” it added.

The World Bank said that continued depreciation of the yen could affect the dynamics of trade and manufacturing in the region. Some countries, principally Korea, could face competitive pressures in the short term. But countries such as Thailand, which supplies motor vehicle parts to Japan, may benefit from advances made by Japanese exporters.

The Bank of Japan on April 4 stunned markets by unveiling an unprecedented monetary expansion campaign with plans to inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy over two years to break a deflationary cycle and end two decades of stagnation. The unprecedented easing provided fresh momentum to yen bears, with the dollar tapping a four-year high of 99.95 yen on Thursday.

While the World Bank didn’t directly reference the BOJ’s steps, which even eclipsed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s massive quantitative easing program, the radical monetary expansion has caused worries about a wall of money moving into emerging markets and other economies in search of higher returns, potentially stoking inflation and asset bubbles.

The World Bank also said major East Asian economies such as China, Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines may be reaching the limits of their current productive capacity.

Price pressures are mounting in China, although the headline rate remains under the central bank target of 3.5 percent, while inflation is building up rapidly in Indonesia, it added.

The World Bank sounded a warning on rising debt levels in countries such as Thailand, Malaysia and China.

While China’s general government debt stood at 22.2 percent in 2012, up from 19.6 percent five years ago, non-financial corporate debt has jumped to 126.4 percent of GDP from 113.6 percent in 2007. Household debt equal 29.2 percent of GDP in China, up more than 10 percentage points from 2007, the World Bank added.

“More significant than the growth of government debt has been the expansion in corporate and household debt… The sum of general government, non-financial corporate and household debt now exceeds 150 percent of GDP in Malaysia, Thailand and China,” the World Bank said.

(Reporting by Kevin Lim; Editing by Shri Navaratnam)

Singaporean Ding, described by local media as a bookmaker, will appear before the judge on Tuesday, the Attorney General’s office told Reuters.

On Wednesday, FIFA-recognised referee Ali Sabbagh and assistants Ali Eid and Abdallah Taleb will appear in court where they can request bail or enter a plea against the charge of corruptly receiving gratification to fix a match.

Eid missed Friday’s initial hearing as he suffered an “episode” in detention and was under observation in a Singapore hospital, but the Attorney General’s office said he was brought before the judge on Monday.

The three officials were in Singapore to take charge of the AFC Cup match between local side Tampines Rovers and East Bengal of India but were hastily replaced hours before Wednesday’s kick off by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

The judge has ordered the three to stay in separate cells with the prosecution arguing against bail for fear they were part of a syndicated operation.

The officials face a maximum fine of S$100,000 (52,700 pounds) and a five-year prison term if found guilty, while Ding faces the same punishment on each charge.

(Writing by Patrick Johnston, editing by Mark Meadows)

Singaporean Ding, described by local media as a bookmaker, will appear before the judge on Tuesday, the Attorney General’s office told Reuters.

On Wednesday, FIFA-recognised referee Ali Sabbagh and assistants Ali Eid and Abdallah Taleb will appear in court where they can request bail or enter a plea against the charge of corruptly receiving gratification to fix a match.

Eid missed Friday’s initial hearing as he suffered an “episode” in detention and was under observation in a Singapore hospital, but the Attorney General’s office said he was brought before the judge on Monday.

The three officials were in Singapore to take charge of the AFC Cup match between local side Tampines Rovers and East Bengal of India but were hastily replaced hours before Wednesday’s kick off by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).

The judge has ordered the three to stay in separate cells with the prosecution arguing against bail for fear they were part of a syndicated operation.

The officials face a maximum fine of S$100,000 ($80,700) and a five-year prison term if found guilty, while Ding faces the same punishment on each charge. ($1 = 1.2397 Singapore dollars) (Writing by Patrick Johnston, editing by Mark Meadows)

In the hearing, the prosecution said they opposed bail for FIFA-recognised referee Ali Sabbagh and assistant Abdallah Taleb, arguing they were involved in what ‘appears to be a syndicated operation.’

Assistant referee Ali Eid did not appear in court after he suffered an ‘episode’ in detention. The official is currently under observation in a Singapore hospital and is expected to appear in court on Monday or Tuesday.

The bail hearing for all three was re-scheduled for April 10, when their lawyer can request bail or enter a plea on their behalf. The judge ordered the trio to stay in separate cells.

Their lawyer, who was appointed by the Lebanese Football Association on Thursday, had not met his clients prior to Friday’s hearing. He was accompanied in court by Lebanon’s deputy honorary counsel to Singapore.

Abdallah appeared upset when he was told in court he had a lawyer and demanded to know who had appointed him one, adding he refused to accept anyone selected by the Lebanese government.

He calmed down when the judge explained the appointment came from the LFA.

The three were in Singapore to officiate an AFC Cup match between local side Tampines Rovers and East Bengal of India on Wednesday but were replaced after being detained by the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) hours before the match kicked off.

The CPIB, a government law-enforcement body that is separate from the regular police, said on Thursday the trio had been charged with “corruptly receiving gratification… to fix a football match.”

If found guilty, they face a maximum fine of S$100,000 and a five-year prison term.

The LFA said they were waiting for a reply from the Asian Football Confederation, who run the AFC Cup, on the incident.

The AFC have remained silent despite repeated calls for comment from Reuters.

Both Singapore and Lebanon have a murky recent past involving matchfixing with the prosperous Southeast Asia country accused by European anti-crime agency Europol of being at the centre of a global betting scam with 680 matches under suspicion.

In February, weeks after the Europol accusations, the Lebanese FA handed out punishments to 24 players after discovering international and regional matches had been rigged. (Writing by Patrick Johnston; Editing by Greg Stutchbury)