Veteran ABC journalist Peter Lloyd faces 10 years in jail after saying he would plead guilty to drug charges in Singapore, with a more serious charge of drug trafficking dropped yesterday.
Singapore's attorney-general dropped the most serious of five charges after Lloyd, 41, expressed remorse and told a pre-trial conference he would plead guilty to some lesser charges.
The foreign correspondent still faces one charge of being in possession of methamphetamine, also known as ice, another charge of consuming the stimulant and two charges of possessing drug paraphernalia stained with methamphetamine and ketamine.
Lloyd faces prison time, a $A20,000 fine or both if convicted of the consumption charge.
Lawyer Hamidul Haq said, ''The attorney-general considered all the circumstances and after due process, they decided to withdraw the trafficking charge against Peter.''
A Singaporean man who said he bought drugs from Lloyd was jailed for 10 months on August8.
Lloyd was arrested by police from Singapore's central narcotics bureau on July16 while on leave from his post in New Delhi as the ABC's South Asia correspondent.
Lloyd had been expected to return to Australia to start work as the host of the ABC2 television channel's new breakfast show.
He was appointed to the ABC's South Asia bureau in mid-2002.
His reports on the Bali bombings and later the 2004 tsunami earned him several Walkley Award nominations. AAP/AFP