Singapore: Hacker jailed for defacing Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's website

A Singaporean court has jailed a blogger for two months for defacing the website of the country's prime minister Lee Hsien Loong.

The attack on Loong's website took place during a spate of cyber attacks in the country last November.

Mohammad Azhar bin Tahir, an unemployed 28-year-old, pleaded guilty to "unauthorised modification" of a page of Loong's website on which were displayed messages and pictures making fun of the Singaporean leader from the hacker group Anonymous.

Tahir was jailed for another four months for an unrelated charge under Singapore's Computer Misuse and Cybersecurity Act, a court spokeswoman told AFP news agency.

The section that was hacked by Tahir showed the message "ANONYMOUS SG WAS HERE BIATCH", after the hacker had put computer code into the server of Lee's website.

Earlier this year, another blogger, Roy Ngerng, was found guilty of defaming Loong in a blog post despite raising more than $55,700 (£35,640) for his legal costs through a crowdfunding effort.

A letter from Loong's lawyer requested that Ngerng apologise to the prime minister and remove the blog article which he claimed "impugns his [Lee's] character, credit and integrity."