After he endured four flesh-searing lashes in a Singapore jail, Michael Fay says, he shook hands with the man who caned him.
"I shook his hand because I keep my pride inside me," Fay said Tuesday, as he was released after 83 days in jail.
Fay, 19, of Kettering, Ohio, created an international furor when Singapore officials sentenced him to a caning for his part in a vandalism spree.
The sentence brought protests from the U.S. government, which called the punishment inhumane. But some Americans, fed up with crime, wrote newspapers and the Singapore government, applauding the sentence.
Looking pale and thin, Fay left Singapore on Tuesday to fly to his father's home in Ohio. He has been deluged with requests by TV talk shows, as well as requests to sell his story - and pictures of his caned backside.
Fay didn't discuss the offers Tuesday, saying "I'm happy to be out. My health is good. I am looking forward to the future. I am looking forward to going back to my own country."
He continued to maintain his innocence, saying officials beat him and his friends to get them to confess that they had spray-painted cars and vandalized buildings.
"I was smacked in the face. My hair was pulled. I was actually pulled out of my chair by the hair. I was hit on the head with one of the officer's knuckles," Fay said in an interview.
"My friends as well were also tortured, and some were tortured worse than me.
"I say that from the deepest of my heart that I did not commit any of these things, except that I had some signs in my house."
Singapore police have denied that Fay, who was living in Singapore with his mother and stepfather, was bullied into confessing.
Fay's father, George, who saw him for the first time Tuesday, said he had not been able to examine his son, but he was in good spirits.
"Apparently he's come through it intact, particularly mentally. He surprised me very much as to how strong he was."
At Fay's home in Kettering, a small suburb of Dayton, friends and family had hung a red, white and blue sign that reads, "Welcome Home Mike" on his father's white brick house.
