3-year jail sentence given to man who evaded National Service for over 20 years

A local man who also has Indonesian citizenship was given the maximum jail sentence of three years for defaulting on National Service (NS) for 21 years and nine months. He was also fined S$3,000.

The judge in his case, James Elisha Lee, said that Zao’s behaviour falls under the worst category of NS defaulters. Edmond Yao Zhi Hai’s lawyers filed an appeal against the conviction after he was sentenced on Tuesday (May 26).

Yao, now 47, was supposed to report for enlistment into full-time NS in January 1997, but failed to do so. In his sentencing, Justice Lee noted how the Defence Ministry’s Defence Central Manpower Base (CMPB) had repeatedly informed Yao and his parents of his obligation to serve the NS requirement, but this was “blatantly” ignored over the years.

According to Zao, he was following Indonesian law, which does not allow its citizens to serve in the armed forces of another country.

However, the judge said that Zao’s “failure to contact CMPB to resolve his NS liabilities can only be attributable to an outright refusal to acknowledge his NS obligations.”

Zao’s backstory

Zao was born in 1978 to a Singaporean woman married to an Indonesian man. While his father registered him as an Indonesian and obtained an Indonesian passport for him, a deed poll stating that Yao was a minor and a citizen of Singapore was made by his mother when Yao was 8 years old.