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SINGAPORE: Singaporean Amos Yee has been deported from the US and is set to appear in a Singapore court on Friday morning (Mar 20) for National Service enlistment offences.<\/p>\n
The Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) previously said that Yee had committed offences under the Enlistment Act, including failing to report for pre-enlistment medical screening and remaining outside of Singapore without a valid exit permit.<\/p>\n
Yee, 27, was granted asylum by the US in 2017. He was arrested in 2020 by US marshals in Chicago for possessing child pornography and grooming a teenage girl.<\/p>\n
In November last year, Yee was detained by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)\u00a0after he was released on parole from the Danville Correctional Center in Illinois.\u00a0<\/p>\n
He was last recorded at the Miami Correctional Facility, an ICE detention centre.<\/p>\n
CNA has contacted MINDEF, the Singapore Police Force and the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority for more information.<\/p>\n
In 2015, Yee was jailed in Singapore for wounding religious feelings by making remarks about Christians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
About a year later, Yee was jailed again and fined on a similar charge, this time for making remarks about Christians and Muslims.<\/p>\n
He fled to the US and was granted asylum by the US despite opposition from the US Department of Homeland Security.<\/p>\n
But in October 2020, Yee fell foul of the law in the US for possession of child pornography and grooming a 14-year-old girl.<\/p>\n
A US court heard that Yee had befriended the victim in February 2019. They began an \u201conline courtship\u201d, during which he repeatedly asked for her naked photos.<\/p>\n
On occasions, he asked her to engage in role play and \u201csexual fantasies\u201d, said the prosecution. This was despite the victim telling him that she was 14 years old.<\/p>\n
A judge said that Yee had used WhatsApp to \u201cseduce, solicit and lure\u201d the victim and distributed photographs of her online.<\/p>\n
Yee pleaded guilty to the charges in December 2021 and was sentenced to six years’ jail, with the prison term backdated to his arrest date.<\/p>\n
He was granted parole halfway through his sentence in October 2023, but was taken back into custody about a month later for\u00a0violating parole conditions.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n