Email 'bomber' fined

A court in Singapore is reported to have heavily fined a man for the high-tech crime of e-mail 'bombing'.

The Straits Times newspaper reported that the court heard he sent seven-and-a-half-thousand e-mails to a government housing agency over a two-and-a-half period last New Year's eve -- just when the computer industry was bracing itself for the possible arrival of the so-called millennium bug.

It was said in the man's defence that he was desparate about delays over his application to buy a flat.

He escaped prison, but was fined the equivalent of seventeen thousand US dollars thirty thousand Singapore dollars.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service