A former Singapore state minister and member of parliament has been fined and barred from driving for a year due to drunken driving.
Chan Soo Sen, 56, was fined 2,000 Singapore dollars and disqualified from driving for a year, according to media reports today.
Chan, however, said that no one is above the law as he accepted the court's decision yesterday for drunken driving last month.
"Nobody is above the law. I committed an offence, I faced up to it and I accept the sentence and move on," Chan said.
"It was totally not intended at all, I made a wrong decision of driving there... It was due to my carelessness," admitted Chan, who was caught driving under the influence of alcohol on July 13 during a midnight police check after a police officer noticed he smelled strongly of alcohol.
He could have been jailed up to six months or fined 5,000 Singapore dollars.
Offenders can be disqualified from driving all vehicles for a minimum period of a year.
This was Chan's first traffic offence in court.
Chan was the ruling People's Action Party MP from 1996 to 2011 and had been a minister of state three times between 2001 and 2006.
