Swiss vandal sentenced to five months, three strokes of the cane

Swiss national Oliver Fricker has been sentenced to five months’ jail and three strokes of the cane.

Earlier in the day, the 32-year-old software consultant pleaded guilty to two charges of entering a protected place and vandalising an SMRT train.

For entering a protected place, he could have been fined up to $1,000 and jailed up to two years.

He was facing a fine of up to $2,000 or a jail term of up to three years and at least three strokes of the cane for the vandalism charge.

Fricker’s lawyer Derek Kang told Yahoo! Singapore that he would be filing an appeal on his client’s behalf.

“We are filing an appeal because we feel the sentence is a bit on the high side.”

The 33-year-old lawyer from law firm Rodyk & Davidson LLP said the appeal hearing would take at the very earliest “a few weeks.” When asked if the appeal would succeed, he said he has to be “hopeful” it will.

Acknowledging the huge media interest in the case, Kang also said he was initially taken aback.

“Before the first time, I probably wasn’t aware of how much attention this case had attracted. But I was forewarned that a lot of foreign media would be covering it.”

Kang also added he was in touch with the Swiss embassy, who are providing consular support for his client.

The Straits Times earlier detailed how Fricker and his British accomplice, Dane Alexander Lloyd, carried out their vandalism act on May 15.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sharon Lim said the pair came to know each other in Australia about three years ago, and had been keeping in touch occasionally through e-mail. Earlier this year, the 29-year-old Briton told Fricker he would be coming here for a visit for some “non-legal things”.

On the day of the act, the pair collected delivery of a carton of paint at City Hall MRT. By then, Fricker had already used Google to recce where the Changi SMRT depot was and where all the MRT trains were parked.

Later that evening, both men, each carrying a small bag with a few cans of spray entred the depot after cutting a hole in the fence.

After each had spray-painted the words “McKoy Banos” on the MRT carriages, they took some photographs of their work before leaving the same way they came.

Fricker was arrested on May 25, while Lloyd is still at large.

Many think that the Swiss vandal does not actually deserve the punishment, as his works on the MRT train were rather artistic and well drawn. However, in my opinion, I think that it is rather right that that he has to be punished this way. Think of it this way. Despite him not doing much harm to the society, he still managed to trespass the depot and managed to vandalise the train. If he was able to access the depot, he could have been able to do anything to the MRT trains there. If the authorities are not strict regarding this, it would be akin to being lax in security.

Random story (2)

It has been eight years. Eight years have passed since my brother stepped out of the house.. Eight years since the clock in my room stopped moving. Eight years have passed since I first felt alone. Eight years have passed since I, Dan, started to feel truly alone.

Life had not been the same without my brother. Life is barely livable. Life is something that ticks away with every budge of the needle. It is something predictable. It is boring. Or so I thought.

I saw her on the side walk.

She walked with a grace that kept eyes on her, a style of sauntering down the path that made heads turn. She walked with an elegance kept solely to the nobles and the rich. Her hair was long and of a burning hue of dark brown, swaying in the fine cool breeze. Her skin shined in the morning sun. It was a shine that attracted attention. It was a shine that gathered envy and jealously. When she turned, I saw her eyes. It transfixed me. The crystal clear eyes of bright serene blue sparkled in the light of the day. Her dress swayed and flowed with her walk. It was perfection gliding with liquid grace that met my eyes, which transfixed me, that shocked me. The curve of her lips was a symbol of perfection, and her smile showed tranquility and peace. I was transfixed, awe struck by her beauty, mesmerized by her. I found my self following what seemed to me as the most elegant and beautiful person in the world. I found myself under her mesmeric control.

She walked down the sidewalk, oblivious to her charm, oblivious to what she had done to me. I followed her down the sidewalk, slowly, silently, carefully, admiring her perfect self, the shocking sky blue in her crystal eyes. She whom I saw as an angel walked on, heading for the curve that led to the bright forest. She turned. I followed, with questions that pounded in my head. A forest? Why is she entering a forest? Quickening my pace, I followed the small path and found myself looking at naught but the tall trees in the bright forest.

The sky darkened. It was not the darkness of the night, but the darkness of the shadows. The gentle breeze died, replaced with a pungent lingering stench of the dead. The trees spread, covering the dense forest with its dark green cape, throwing the forest into the grasps of the shadows. The air was still, yet the area seemed cold. It was freezing, yet I was not shivering due to the cold, but shivering because of the eerie silence that descended on the now dead forest. Evil. The forest reigned of evil in is full dominance.

An agonized cry shook the air. It seemed like the cry of the dead itself. The lingering stench of the dead grew stronger, mixed with the deranged cries of someone, or something. I looked up, and saw the source of darkness itself.

It had the head of what seemed like a cross between a rotting snake and a monitor lizard, with two horns curling towards the front and two hollows for its ears. Dark leathery wings spread out of its ravaged back and curled forward, flapping and keeping its rotting body afloat, creating a gust strong enough to eradicate anything in its path. There was nothing to cover its dirt-covered bones, save the few patches of rotting flesh that wrapped its torso and parts of its white leg. Black claws extended from every one of its bare fingers, curling inwards towards its spiked knee. Amongst it all, was that hair grew out of its bare, empty skull. It was a burning hue of dark brown. Its red eyes shined in the surrounding darkness and crimson blood dripped from a crack in its deformed skull; blood that seemed as dark as the darkness around it. It shrieked, wrecking the trees that stood in its path. Its eyes fixed on me. Its eyes shone with an invisible force. It was the desire for my death, and my end.

Fear. Fear shook me. I tried to edge towards the edge of the forest but something held me in place. It shrieked once more. With a gust of wind it leapt off the branch and flew towards me. Revealing its fangs it let out another cry and its eyes shone with crimson blood. I couldn’t move. I saw Death coming straight at me. I saw the end of my life in front of me. I squeezed my eyes shut and knew that the end was near.

I was going to die, yet I could not do anything. Nothing at all.

I waited.

I waited for my death. The searing pain. The numbing heat.

I felt nothing.

I opened my eyes.

The creature was frozen in mid air, suspended by an invisible force, unmoving. Eight queer symbols shone from the ground forming an octagon made of glowing lights. Every symbol pulsed one after another in a steady tempo, and the air around it was heavy with what seemed to be raw power. A figure stepped out from among the mass of trees. Blood dripped from the tip of his index finger. The cloak he wore covered his entire body and the blood seemed to be the only colour within the shadows of his figure. Stepping over to the edge of the still-glowing octagon, he reached for the ground, and with his blood, traced eight more symbols in the ground behind each of the initial symbols, forming a second ring around the creature.

There was a glint as he extracted a knife with a silver hilt and sparkling blade and dragged its edge against his hand, drawing a line of blood. The blade grew darker in hue, till it matched the blood pouring out of the open wound. He pressed his bleeding palm onto the ground and the new symbols glowed dark red. A line stretched out from each symbol and connected the symbols together, forming a second octagon.

The air no longer ringed of power, it was now filled with a fizzy sort of energy. Soon, swords made of what seemed to be black light materialized in mid-air and stuck itself into the creature. There was a flash, and the creature was on the ground, cut into pieces and vaporizing on the very spot that it fell on.

The symbols stopped glowing.

Random story (1)

Sky stood unblinking into the depths of the night. Unmoving, he scanned the surroundings, hoping to catch a glimpse of an opening, any opening that could lead him into the ruins of Zarion. Every sound, every cry of the wild animals startled him, how could it not? Think of the jewel, only the jewel, it is most important, nothing else matters, thought Sky, yet there was something about it all that worried him. Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to calm himself down but it failed. Looking back up and seeing the guards move away, he knew it was time.

Leaping from the wall, he broke his fall with a roll, trying to lessen the noise made. Sky moved among the cold hard stone, trying to sneak in without the guards knowing. Hiding behind the fallen pillars, he sneaked past the debris and made for the gate. As the guard turned away, he dashed and knocked him out with a blow to the neck. “Not as heavily guarded as I thought,” Sky muttered. “A Jewel in this place and not so many guards as I thought, what are they thinking?”

Every pillar and path were cracked and ruined beyond measure. Shadows lurked at every corner. The silence was deafening. Where were all the guards? All he could hear was his own rasped breathing and the distant echo of his footsteps. He could sense the faint aura of the jewel, and he followed his weak sense of location. The distant beating aura of the Jewel felt ever closer as Sky moved closer to the heart of the ruins. He could definitely locate it now. Quickening his pace, he turned into a corner.

The image of a hall came into view. And there it was! At the back of the hall, stuck in a stone tablet with symbols, chipping off with age, was the Jewel, pulsing with a magnificent hue of crimson red, its radiance greater than anything in the world. Sky’s heart jumped as the Jewel pulsed. He approached the Jewel. Shock found its way to him.

Countless bodies stood at the base of the wall, which the tablet was mounted on, their faces frozen with a look of agony, unmoving. Their faces were deathly pale, as if the blood which pulsed through their veins were sapped from their very bodies. He looked at their outstretched arms in horror, all seemingly reaching for the Jewel, with their fingers leaving bloody trails in the ancient stone, forming a strange pattern that glowed dark crimson. The stench of rotting bodies nauseated him, yet he could not force himself to budge. Every single part of his body was frozen, as he stood staring at the numerous bodies in disbelief, petrified. The Jewel pulsed. And soon after, the once red Jewel dimmed, and lost its radiance. The Jewel pulsed yet again and more of its magnificence vanished into the unknown oblivion. The Jewel darkened into black, and fell from its place on the stone tablet. Sky forced his body to move to the Jewel, and finally understood. The Jewel was the Jewel of Death, no longer Crimson as if it had been satisfied by the deaths of others.

The tablet read:

May those who reach towards the treasure,

May those whose greed drives them forward,

Feel the pain,

Feel the wrath,

And vanish into the unknown oblivion,

Where terrors await.

And Death follows.

Heat rippled through the room. Closing his eyes, he could hear the countless whispers. Where they came from, Sky did not know. All he could feel was the cold hard floor of the eerie dungeon and the distant screams of the agonized voices. Dilemma. He was in a quandary of what to do. It seemed as if his feet could not budge, as if his feet was engraved on the silent stone floor, as it fear has come to life, choking him, trapping him, isolating him in the very depths of the darkness around him, in the evil that surrounded him.

The Jewel beckoned. It pulsed with ripping power, though not as strongly as he thought it would be. “It is there, the key to the Dreona secrets, your ancestors’ secrets, the key to unlimited power… move your useless Dreonan body!”

His palm enclosed over the warm blunt edges of the pulsing Jewel. He could hear the countless silent screams that dominated this mind, which shook his body, which threatened his existence. Amongst the cries of agony, he could feel the beating of a thousand hearts, the pulse of the ages. The Jewel was in his hand. It was finally in his hand. The secrets of the Dreona clan, the secrets of his ancestors, the power of the ages, never seemed closer, seemingly near his very soul. The key to his own Dreonan body was in his very hands. The lives of probably thousands were in his very palm. “You would not regret it, they would not haunt you, they are dead,” he reassured himself. “Just use it, use it and unlock your strength. Use it and free your Dreonan self.

He closed his eyes.

Use it…

Use the power of the ages…

Use life itself…

Use it…

It poured in. It was an unthinkable flow of strength, never ending, never ceasing. Queer as it was, every bit of power that was poured into him was a stab to his heart. Every soul that entered his body was a scream of agony in his mind. It was raw power. It was strength. He was unaware of everything around him, save the flow of energy, and the swirling darkness in his mind. His vision blurred. His mind throbbed. The Jewel pulsed. His vision dimmed yet again. Another self seemed to have emerged from his mind, separating the Sky he is, and the Sky that he is not. Sky could feel the rippling energy that he emanated. It beckoned him, it attracted him, and it pulled him. The darkness thickened. There was naught but the desire for power in his mind. The darkness covered and reigned in the possessed mind.

The side of his mouth curled upwards. The sky blue in his eyes was gone, replaced by nothing but the deep dark emptiness of his now possesed self. The dark eyes flashed for a moment and lazy wings flicked out from his back, wings that were as dark as the night sky. The wide wings dipped and swept everything before it into a chaotic pile, and lifted him off the ground. The Dreonan senses unlocked and tasted the cool night sky. “Feel the freedom reign! It was wise of you to accept my offer of sheer power,” his other self cackled. There was no answer.