SINGAPORE — The ex-wife of alleged match-fixing kingpin Dan Tan successfully appealed against her sentence for lying to graft cops yesterday, as a High Court judge found that her actions had not hampered investigations against Tan or helped him get away.

Guan Enmei, 41, will serve three weeks’ jail instead of the original two-month term.

“Mdm Guan (Enmei’s) actions had no implication on the investigations given that the false information was immaterial, and had not caused or assisted Dan Tan to evade arrest or prosecution,” said Judicial Commissioner See Kee Oon yesterday.

Nonetheless, the judge noted that Guan had shown a conscious disregard of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) investigator’s warning to tell the truth, and her lack of remorse in persisting in her lie for three years.

Guan lied to a CPIB officer on June 6, 2013, that she had left her home that day with only her handbag, and denied bringing along another bag containing two laptops belonging to Tan, who is believed to be behind the world’s largest football match-fixing syndicate.

Earlier that day, Tan had instructed her to safeguard these laptops before he headed to the CPIB’s premises at Lengkok Bahru for investigations.

Guan was also called up for an interview at CPIB and had brought the two laptops with her. Before attending the interview, she passed them to her chauffeur and instructed him to wait at a nearby coffee shop.

CPIB officers apprehended the chauffeur at the coffee shop and confiscated the laptops. When they questioned her about the laptops, she denied having them.

After a two-day trial in May, Guan was convicted of giving false information to a CPIB investigator and sentenced to two months’ jail, after a district judge found her to be an “evasive and unreliable” witness.

Both the prosecution and Guan had filed appeals.

Yesterday, JC See ruled that Guan’s actions had not helped Tan evade arrest or prosecution, nor did they cause the CPIB to waste time and resources on pointless enquiry.

Neither had her lies prejudiced investigations or resulted in a miscarriage of justice, he added, noting that the prosecution had also conceded that the laptops did not contain relevant or useful information.

“On the other hand, it is also questionable what purpose was meant to be served by asking her the question (about the laptops) at all when the CPIB already had the items in safe custody ...,” he added.

The judge noted that Guan had lied partially out of self-preservation, and not solely to mislead the CPIB.

“The most likely inference is that she had done so believing that there was material in the laptops which was relevant or likely to be relevant to the CPIB’s investigations even if it is not the only plausible inference that one may draw,” said JC See.

Dismissing the prosecution’s call for a jail term of four to six months against the backdrop of high-profile investigations into a match-fixing syndicate, JC See stressed that investigations were already ongoing for Tan at the time of the lie, and Tan was ultimately not charged.

Tan was detained under the Criminal Law (Temporary Provisions) Act (CLTPA) in October 2013.

But the Court of Appeal ordered Tan to be released in November last year, ruling that the detention was “unlawful” and the grounds for his lock-up had few connections with Singapore. About a week later, a fresh detention order was issued under the CLTPA, and Tan has been in detention since.