Singapore, November 25

A Singaporean businessman accused by Interpol of running a global football match-fixing ring was freed on appeal on Wednesday after more than two years of detention, state prosecutors said.

Dan Tan, who was arrested in September 2013 and held under a special law allowing detention without trial, was set free after the Court of Appeal ruled that he posed no danger to public safety and order.

The Attorney-General’s Chambers, which handles prosecutions of criminal cases, told AFP it “will study carefully the Court of Appeal’s written grounds of decision before determining any course of action”. Singapore authorities had invoked the law, normally used against gangsters, to arrest Tan due to the difficulty of finding evidence and witnesses against him.

Such detentions are subject to annual review by the minister of home affairs.

The Straits Times newspaper quoted Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon as saying that there was nothing to suggest that Tan’s alleged overseas match-fixing activities jeopardised public safety, peace and good order in Singapore. The three-judge appeals court is the highest judicial power in Singapore.

The 51-year-old Tan, also known as Tan Seet Eng, had filed a legal challenge against his detention nearly one year after his arrest. After the arrest, then Interpol chief Ronald Noble said.