SINGAPORE: Singapore’s Court of Appeal freed on Wednesday Dan Tan Seet Eng, named by the Interpol as “the leader of the world’s most notorious match-fixing syndicate”, saying his detention without trial was unlawful.

Interpol lauded Singaporean authorities when they arrested the businessman in 2013, saying he was the “mastermind” of the world’s largest and most aggressive football match-fixing syndicate.

Tan, 51, has been detained since October 2013 under a law that allows Singapore’s Ministry of Home Affairs to detain without trial up to a year a person who has been associated with activities of a criminal nature if the ministry deems it necessary in the interests of public safety, peace and good order.

The orders for detention could be reviewed annually.

The grounds given for Tan’s detention, which are based on his running of the syndicate from Singapore and his recruitment of runners in Singapore, set out few connections with Singapore, the chief justice and two appeal court judges said in their written decision.

“While, as we have noted, these acts are reprehensible and should not be condoned, there is nothing to suggest whether [or how] these activities could be thought to have a bearing on the public safety, peace and good order within Singapore,” they said.

“The matches fixed, whether or not successfully, all took place beyond our shores. There is nothing in the grounds to indicate [he] was working with overseas criminal syndicates or to suggest that such activities are likely to take root in Singapore, by reason of anything [he] has done or threatens to do.”

The judges ruled that Tan, who did not face charges in Singapore, should be set free but it was unclear whether Tan had been released.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers, which handles prosecutions of criminal cases, said it “will study carefully the Court of Appeal’s written grounds of decision before determining any course of action”.

Tan’s previous appeal had been dismissed by another Singapore court last year.

One of Tan’s lawyers, Hamidul Haq, said Wednesday that he had long argued Tan was being held on unlawful grounds.

“It has been proven true today through the court judgment,” he said. “My client is very relieved.”

Introduced in 1955, the Singaporean detention law has been used against suspected drug traffickers, illegal money-lenders and criminal gang members, especially in cases involving insufficient evidence for prosecution.

Tan was arrested along with 13 others in September 2013 in a move that was hailed by Interpol as a major breakthrough in the battle against corruption in football.

At the time, Italian prosecutor Roberto Di Martino, who was leading an inquiry into international match-fixing, referred to Tan as the “general director of the ring”.

Tan was suspected of being the mastermind behind fixed matches in Italy’s Serie A and Serie B in 2011. He is also being tried in absentia by a Hungarian court for allegedly manipulating 32 games in Hungary, Italy and Finland.

Police say global match-fixing generates billions of dollars a year in revenues, fuelled in part by the popularity of online betting on match results and more minor game statistics.

In a book about Singapore’s deep links with global match-fixing, local investigative journalist Zaihan Mohamed Yusof said authorities swooped on Tan’s gang after uncovering plans to rig qualifiers for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

Experts have said that easy international transport, a passport accepted around the world and fluency in English and Mandarin have helped Singaporean fixers spread their influence abroad with the support of external investors, most believed to be from China.

Tan first came to prominence when fixer Wilson Raj Perumal, also a Singaporean, was arrested and jailed in Finland in 2011 for fixing top-tier games there.

Perumal, now assisting match-fixing investigators in Hungary, had told prosecutors he was a double-crossed associate of Tan.

Chris Eaton, the Qatar-based executive director for sport integrity of the International Center for Sport Security, criticised the ruling and urged Singapore to update its laws.

“The daily reality of the world today is replete with the routine global connections and integrations that Singapore has taken maximum advantage of to build an outstanding economy,” the former FIFA head of security said.

“If your economy and reputation are internationalised, you surely have a duty of care to that global market place, not just your own borders.

“This is the sort of attitude that turned the world of sport into roundly criticising Singapore as hypocritical by not showing good global citizenship in the first place.

“The government finally reacted and now just as Singapore is being congratulated for leadership in saving sport competition from corruption, its own courts have put the country back in the firing line.

“If your law doesn’t fit a modern world, fix it now so it does, just like Dan Tan fixed football matches.”

Published in Dawn, November 26th, 2015