Singapore - A Singapore court on Monday sentenced an inmate of Singapore's Changi prison to 19 years in jail and two other prisoners to 16 years in jail for assaulting a former cellmate, media reports said.

In April and May last year, the trio - Iryan Abdul Karim, 21; Muhammad Hamdan Abdul Rahman, 20; and Mohammed Zameen Abdul Manoff, 22 - beat up a 22-year-old cellmate and forced him to perform oral sex on them, the online edition of the Straits Times newspaper reported.

Iryan and Hamden, the two men who received the lesser jail terms, were also sentenced to receive 16 strokes of the cane while Zameen is to receive 22. They were found guilty last week.

The victim suffered multiple rib fractures and had to stay in hospital for two months.

The judge described the assaults as "both crude and cruel," according to the report.

It was shocking, he said, that the three men "allowed themselves to be carried away by their numerical and physical superiority to the extent of bullying a fellow inmate using such sadistic and degrading acts." (dpa)