SINGAPORE — A computer engineer sentenced to two weeks in jail for hacking into the Marina Bay Sands (MBS) computer network, causing a partial blackout in its casino, has escaped jail after an appeal in the High Court.

Leslie Liew Cheong Wee’s S$15,000 fine for the same charge of causing damage under the Computer Misuse Act was also reduced to S$3,000. But his conviction and S$15,000 fine for five other charges of unauthorised access to the MBS computer system were upheld, meaning the 35-year-old Malaysian will now pay S$18,000 in fines in total.

In a written judgement yesterday, Justice Choo Han Teck said there was no evidence detailing the damage MBS had suffered because of Liew’s actions although he had “deliberately intended” to cause the blackout. He amended Liew’s sixth and more serious charge of causing damage to one of unauthorised access.

According to court documents, Liew had given himself remote access to the MBS computer system by adding an undeclared email address to the system administrator while he was working in 2010 for Power Automation, a subcontractor of another subcontractor MBS had hired to set up its power management control system.

Liew tendered his resignation on April 30 that year and his company barred him from the MBS site on May 3. Between May 9 and 12 that year, however, Liew hacked into its computer system from his Teck Whye Lane home and caused the blackout.

In a cross-appeal for Liew’s jail term to be increased to eight weeks, Deputy Public Prosecutor Terence Chua said the blackout had happened in one of Singapore’s integrated resorts, “whose development and opening were widely publicised worldwide and attracted overwhelming media attention and scrutiny”. MBS was also the “pinnacle” of Singapore’s tourism industry at the time, he added.

But Justice Choo said these did not fall within the definition of damage in criminal prosecutions.

“Private practice lawyers and the civil court might be interested in the reputation and standing of a private institution, but those are not matters that are the concern of the public prosecution service and the criminal court generally and in this offence specifically,” he said.

He added that the prosecution’s argument that the blackout was a threat to public safety was not stated in Liew’s charge.