Raeesah-Gate: Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh trial over alleged lies to Parliament; verdict expected on 17 Feb 2025

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 13 (8 Nov 2024)

Prosecution wraps up WP chief Pritam Singh’s cross-examination; verdict expected on Feb 17, 2025

By Wong Pei Ting and Vanessa Paige Chelvan, The Straits Times, 9 Nov 2024

The defence on Nov 8 wrapped up its case in Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh’s trial without calling new witnesses, after the prosecution spent more than 11 hours over three days cross-examining Singh on his evidence.

Drawing his cross-examination to a close, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock spent half an hour putting to Singh what the prosecution viewed as the true version of events of how the Leader of the Opposition handled the lie told by former WP MP Raeesah Khan, and asked if he agreed with each statement line by line.

Singh disagreed with most of them.

It is the prosecution’s case that Singh tried to, on multiple occasions, cover up his involvement in Ms Khan’s lie to Parliament, including by getting her to not respond to the police when they requested to interview her on Oct 7, 2021.

Mr Ang also made the case that Singh withheld the information that he knew of Ms Khan’s untruth as early as Aug 7, 2021, from former WP chief Low Thia Khiang when they met on Oct 11, 2021.

Mr Low had earlier testified that he only knew in August 2023 about Singh’s prior knowledge of the matter.

The prosecution said the police’s Oct 7 request for Ms Khan to be interviewed and Mr Low’s advice on Oct 11 for Ms Khan to tell the truth were the incidents that set Singh on the path of ensuring Ms Khan’s untruth would be clarified in Parliament.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to look into the lying controversy involving Ms Khan.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament a false anecdote that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Bringing up the police’s Oct 7 e-mail to Ms Khan, Mr Ang said: “You were concerned that if Ms Khan went for the interview with the police, she might reveal the truth and of your knowledge since August.”

In coming to this conclusion, Mr Ang earlier asked Singh why Ms Khan could not just respond to the police if the intention was to have her tell the truth.

He replied that he did not believe she could have done that, as in his view the matter should be addressed in Parliament.

“This is arising from how we as opposition MPs take the separation of powers schema quite seriously. We believe that if you’ve done something wrong in Parliament, then (the matter should be addressed in Parliament),” Singh added.

What the prosecution pieced together

Singh, WP chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap had known of Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament by Aug 8, 2021, when they met her at Singh’s house to discuss the untrue anecdote.

Summarising the prosecution’s case, Mr Ang put it to Singh that he did not tell Ms Khan to speak to her parents or that she would have to deal with the issue of her lie at the conclusion of their Aug 8 meeting.

This is because Singh thought the untruth would not be brought up again in Parliament, and that the matter was resolved, after Leader of the House Indranee Rajah said at the Aug 3 sitting that MPs had to be ready to substantiate their points when making serious allegations, Mr Ang said.

Ms Khan had earlier told the court Ms Lim said at the meeting that the issue would probably not be raised again, with Singh mentioning that “this is something we would all have to take to the grave”.

By “take to the grave”, Mr Ang said Singh meant the truth could be buried. “As far as you’re concerned, there was no need to discuss this untruth any further... You were content for Ms Khan to leave the untruth unclarified in Parliament,” he added.

Mr Ang said Singh met Ms Khan’s then aides Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan two days later, as he knew they were close to Ms Khan and aware of her lie.

At this meeting, Singh did not tell Ms Loh and Mr Nathan that the lie had to be clarified in Parliament, or that he had asked Ms Khan to speak to her parents, among other things. This was because he intended to leave the untruth unclarified in Parliament, Mr Ang said.

Mr Ang said that, for this same reason, Singh did not – between Aug 10 and Oct 2 in 2021 – check with Ms Khan if she had spoken with her parents.

Neither did he give any instructions or directions to Ms Khan, Ms Loh or Mr Nathan about the lie, nor discuss the untruth with Ms Lim or Mr Faisal, Mr Ang added.

While Singh had sent an e-mail on Oct 1, 2021, reminding all sitting WP MPs of parliamentary protocols, its real intention was to warn Ms Khan she would have to face the Committee of Privileges (COP) if the Government found out she had lied, Mr Ang said.

“The Oct 1 e-mail was not a prompt for Ms Khan to correct her lie,” he said.

Accusing Singh of telling an “outright lie” when he told the COP that he told her she should clarify the untruth whether or not the issue came up at the Oct 4 Parliament sitting, Mr Ang said Ms Khan was in fact “intentionally guided” that she could choose to continue with the untruth if the issue came up.

Singh had told Ms Khan that if the issue came up, he would not judge her if she were to continue with the narrative, and to that she looked visibly relieved, Mr Ang said.

Noting that no draft clarification for the Oct 4 sitting had been prepared, and how Ms Khan had not told Singh that she had informed her parents that she was sexually assaulted, Mr Ang put to Singh: “You knew it was impossible for her to clarify the untruth the next day because there were no preparations whatsoever for her to do so…

“You knew the only real choice that Ms Khan had, if the issue came up, was to continue the untruth.”

Mr Ang also pointed out that after Ms Khan doubled down on her lie, she could have clarified the untruth when Parliament sat the next day on Oct 5, 2021.

But nothing was done or agreed upon when Singh and Ms Lim met her in his office in Parliament at 11.15pm on Oct 4 because he did not want her to do so, Mr Ang said.

“Ms Khan had suggested to you that there was another path, which was to tell the truth, but you replied it was too late for that,” he added.

Disagreeing, Singh said he believed he said, “Look at the choice you’ve made”, instead.

Mr Ang said that, at that meeting, neither Singh nor Ms Lim asked Ms Khan why she lied again or told her to clarify the untruth because there was no intention at the time for her to do so.

The events on Oct 7 and 11, especially Mr Low’s advice to tell the truth in Parliament, were what set the WP leaders on the new path to ensure Ms Khan would clarify her lie, Mr Ang said.

So Ms Khan heard for the first time in a meeting with Singh and Ms Lim on Oct 12, 2021, that she must make a personal statement in Parliament to clarify the untruth, Mr Ang added.

Neither leader had tried to find out then if she had told her parents about her own sexual assault, he added.

Mr Ang said Singh also recounted to Ms Loh and Mr Nathan that he had told Ms Khan he would not judge her if she decided to continue with the untruth if the issue came up on Oct 4.

This was as Singh was explaining to the pair that “it was now time for Ms Khan to come clean because it seemed that the Government may already know that Ms Khan had lied, and that the matter would not be dropped”, Mr Ang added.

The change in Singh’s intention could be seen in how he gave “clear, explicit and frequent” directions in relation to Ms Khan’s personal statement to clarify her untruth on Nov 1, from Oct 12 to 29.

This was in contrast to his “complete lack of directions and preparations” before Oct 12, Mr Ang pointed out.

Mr Ang also said the WP disciplinary panel (DP) formed on Nov 2 to look into Ms Khan’s lies in Parliament had focused more on her general performance as an MP, as opposed to her conduct in relation to the untrue anecdote.

The DP – which comprised Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal – disregarded the three leaders’ guidance to Ms Khan on Aug 8, and did not consider the discussion Singh had with Ms Khan on Oct 3, Mr Ang said.

It also did not inform WP’s central executive committee (CEC) that the three leaders had known about her lie from Aug 8, Mr Ang added.

Mr Ang said the DP’s conduct was “self-serving and calculated” to distance the three leaders from Ms Khan’s conduct.

“You did not want yours, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal’s conduct to be scrutinised within the party... The DP did not act fairly and impartially in respect of the proceedings against Ms Khan... The DP withheld important facts from the CEC,” he added.

During Singh’s re-examination, which lasted about 20 minutes, the WP chief reiterated that the DP’s formation was Mr Low’s idea.

What’s next?

The prosecution and defence have until Jan 13, 2025, to file their closing submissions. Thereafter, they have till Jan 31 to make reply submissions.

Singh’s case will be heard in court again on Feb 17, 2025, when Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan is expected to give his verdict.

The judge could spell out the outcome of the defence’s bid to impeach Ms Khan’s credit as a witness in his judgment.

If the bid is successful, Ms Khan’s testimony would be given less weight.

As Singh left the State Courts on Nov 8, the Aljunied GRC MP told reporters “there’s still work to be done”, as he has not been on the ground in his Eunos ward due to his trial. He said he will resume house visits and return to Parliament at the next sitting on Nov 11.

‘Who’s telling the truth?’: Prosecution says Singh’s story not consistent with Low Thia Khiang’s

By Ng Wei Kai and Christine Tan, The Straits Times, 9 Nov 2024

Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh’s version of events is not consistent with Mr Low Thia Khiang’s, the prosecution said as Singh took the stand for the fourth day in a trial over his alleged lies.

Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock pointed out differences between the Leader of the Opposition’s testimony and the former WP chief’s regarding a meeting between the pair and WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim on Oct 11, 2021.

This date is central to the prosecution’s case, as it is arguing that Singh had not intended for former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan to clarify her lies in Parliament until after the Oct 11 meeting with Mr Low.

Singh’s two charges are for lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP) that he had, at meetings with her on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted her to do so.

Here are the key points from the third day of Singh’s cross-examination:

1. Prosecution: Singh’s story not consistent with Low Thia Khiang’s

Mr Ang attacked Singh’s account of the Oct 11 meeting with Mr Low, suggesting that he had not formed the intention for Ms Khan to clarify her lies until advised to do so by Mr Low.

He brought up a statement Singh had given to the police on Jan 16, 2023, where he said that Mr Low had not given the WP leaders any advice as they “already knew that all that was left to do was for Ms Khan to admit to her lies in Parliament”.

Mr Ang said: “So my point to you is that Mr Low did in fact give you advice, which was that Ms Khan had to clarify the untruth in Parliament, correct?”

Singh agreed, but said he and Ms Lim already had that perspective before speaking to Mr Low.

Mr Ang pressed him on this, asking: “So it’s not correct for you to say that he did not give you any advice?”

Singh said he replied to the police in that way because he already knew he and Ms Lim wanted Ms Khan to tell the truth.

“It wasn’t advice to me because we already knew that’s what we wanted to do,” he said.

Mr Ang went on to ask Singh if they had told Mr Low at this meeting that they had already formed this view.

Singh said: “We would have shared something to that effect with him.”

Mr Ang noted then that Mr Low had said earlier during the trial that neither Singh nor Ms Lim had told him they already planned for Ms Khan to tell the truth in Parliament.

Mr Low had testified as a prosecution witness on Oct 23, 2024.

Mr Ang added: “Nobody told him at this meeting that this was already the plan. Do you recall that?”

“That may be his recollection,” Singh replied.

Mr Ang continued to press Singh on whether he and Ms Lim had told Mr Low of their plans at the meeting.

He said: “So your recollection is that you did tell Mr Low that Raeesah would be clarifying her untruth in Parliament?”

Singh agreed with this.

Mr Ang said: “So who’s telling the truth?... He’s lying, or you’re lying, isn’t it?”

To this, Singh said: “That’s something you have to draw a conclusion on.”

“Yes, I will,” said Mr Ang.

The prosecutor put it to Singh that Mr Low had told the truth – that Singh did not tell him that Ms Khan would be clarifying her lie in Parliament.

Singh disagreed.

Mr Ang also questioned Singh about whether he told Mr Low at the Oct 11 meeting that Ms Khan had already confessed her lie to him, Ms Lim and WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap on Aug 8, 2021.

Ms Khan lied to Parliament on Aug 3 that year. She gave a false anecdote about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively.

Ms Khan repeated her lie on Oct 4 before coming clean on Nov 1 the same year.

Singh said in a statement to the police that Mr Low was told at the Oct 11 meeting that WP leaders had known about Ms Khan’s lie since Aug 8 the same year, Mr Ang noted.

However, Mr Low told the court he came to know of this only in August 2023, almost two years later, Mr Ang said.

Mr Ang said: “Your evidence is that you told Mr Low, and Mr Low said you did not. Which is the truth?”

Singh said he did tell Mr Low: “Yes, as per my statement, that would be my recollection.”

Mr Ang pressed the point, asking: “So if you are right, then Mr Low is lying, right?”

Singh said: “No, I wouldn’t say that, it could be a question of memories.”

Further pressed on whether he thought his memory was more accurate than Mr Low’s, Singh said: “My reply there was really shaped by my relationship with Mr Low, that when we speak about any matter, everything is shared openly.”

Mr Ang said: “So in other words, you actually cannot remember whether you told Mr Low this but you think, based on the way you have this relationship with him, you must have told him.”

Singh said: “Yes, because there was nothing for me to hide from him.”

Mr Ang later said: “Mr Singh, I would suggest to you that you never told Mr Low that you found out about the untruth as early as August.”

Singh disagreed.

“And the reason you did not do that was because you knew what Mr Low’s reaction would be,” Mr Ang added.

Singh disagreed again.

2. Prosecution: Singh lied to the COP that he did not know Loh Pei Ying would testify

Mr Ang suggested to Singh that he lied to the COP when he said he did not know Ms Khan’s former party aide Loh Pei Ying was going to give evidence to it.

Singh disagreed.

He had the day before said in court that he had been inaccurate in what he told the COP, and that he had in fact known since Nov 29, 2021, that Ms Loh was going to give evidence, days before the COP began proceedings on Dec 2.

The prosecution had earlier argued that because Singh knew Ms Loh and Ms Khan would be giving evidence, he chose on Nov 30 to arrange a press conference on Ms Khan’s lies. The press conference was held on Dec 2, the same day the COP began proceedings.

On Nov 8, 2024, Mr Ang said: “You have told the court that actually – ‘I did know on Nov 29, 2021, I did know that Ms Loh was going to give evidence before the COP’, you told the court that yesterday, right?”

Singh responded: “Yes. Later, I came to find out.”

Mr Ang then asked him what his position was, to which Singh said: “I think the final position is quite clear. I did not recall the series of messages that Pei Ying and Mike were informed…

“I think I was into my seventh or eighth hour at the COP. That detail I forgot. I have no difficulty with sharing with this court that it was an omission on my part.”

Mr Mike Lim is another WP cadre who messaged Singh on Nov 29, 2021, to tell him Ms Khan and Ms Loh had been called to give evidence to the COP.

Mr Ang continued to press Singh on when he knew that Ms Loh was testifying. “I’m asking you as of Nov 29, 2021.”

Singh responded: “You see Mr Ang, I have answered it already…

“I have received, as you can see from the police statement, I had received the message, I am not going to deny that.”

3. Prosecution: Singh’s statements to the court and police are contradictory

Mr Ang also contended that Singh’s version of events in court contradicted what he had told the police about a meeting between him, Ms Loh and another of Ms Khan’s former aides, Mr Yudhishthra Nathan.

He made the point that Singh had testified – repeatedly – that Ms Low and Ms Nathan were trying to suppress the truth.

“But in your statement to the police, you told the police that they were not trying to suppress the truth.”

This line of questioning revolves around what was said at a meeting between the trio on Oct 12, 2021.

Mr Ang said Singh stated in his statement to the police that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were not trying to suppress Ms Khan’s lie but, rather, discussing how to articulate it in her personal statement.

Mr Ang noted that the pair, who took the stand as prosecution witnesses, have said in court that they thought if Ms Khan did not reveal her own sexual assault in her clarification to Parliament, it would be very difficult to explain why she lied.

He said: “That was their position, yes?”

Singh agreed.

When asked if he agreed with this position eventually, he said: “My view was that the statement was for Ms Khan to make, they can retain that view, for me it was about what she was going to say.”

Mr Ang then asked if Singh agreed with the pair’s view that it would be difficult to explain why Ms Khan lied to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, without mentioning she was a sexual assault victim.

Ms Khan later explained that she had heard the anecdote in her lie in a support group for survivors of sexual assault which she was also part of.

Mr Ang said: “So at that time your recollection... that there was no other way for Ms Khan except to say the truth that she was a sexual assault victim, that was your point at the time, correct?”

Singh agreed.

Mr Ang went on to highlight the apparent difference between Singh’s statements to the police and the court, saying that he told the court that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were trying to suppress the untruth, but he told the police that they were not.

He said: “Both are contradictory. Only one of them can be the truth. Can you tell us, were you lying in the police statement, or were you lying in court?”

Singh said: “I wasn’t lying anywhere.”

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 12 (7 Nov 2024)

3 WP leaders formed panel to throw Raeesah under the bus: Prosecution

By Wong Pei Ting and Christine Tan, The Straits Times, 8 Nov 2024

The same three Workers’ Party (WP) leaders who learnt of former WP MP Raeesah Khan’s lie in Parliament as early as Aug 8, 2021, were also the ones who made up the disciplinary panel (DP) that eventually recommended she be expelled from the party.

On Nov 7, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock used this point to make the case that this was part of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s attempt to cover up the three WP leaders’ involvement in getting Ms Khan to stick to her lie.

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened to look into the lying controversy involving Ms Khan.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 of the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

The DP, comprising Singh, WP chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap, presented its recommendations to WP’s central executive committee (CEC) on Nov 30, 2021, which voted to expel Ms Khan if she did not resign.

Mr Ang put it to Singh that the WP chief was using the DP process to “quickly close this matter” and get rid of Ms Khan.

“You wanted to cover up your own involvement, Ms Lim’s involvement and Mr Faisal’s involvement... You were figuratively throwing (Ms Khan) under the bus,” he added.

Disagreeing, Singh said he and the WP leaders could not cover up their involvement if there was anything of that sort.

Singh was also asked why the fact that Ms Khan had told the WP leaders about her lie five days after she said it in Parliament was not brought up as a mitigating factor.

The mitigating factors that the DP presented to the CEC included the fact that Ms Khan had corrected the record at the Nov 1 Parliament sitting.

Singh said he would not call her Aug 8 admission a mitigating factor since she was probed about her anecdote multiple times before admitting that she lied, and she had not cleared the record in Parliament by that point.

Singh also said he did not see it relevant to add, as part of his submissions to the CEC, that he did not follow up with Ms Khan on her lie after Aug 8, 2021, as he was busy.

Mr Ang then questioned Singh on the aggravating factors listed in the DP recommendations and asked why he did not see it apt to add that Ms Khan had “dragged her feet” for more than two months, since Singh said he had been waiting on her to tell her parents and get ready to come clean about her lie from Aug 8.

Singh responded that the point was not relevant in his mind when the document was being prepared.

Mr Ang then put it to the WP chief that he did not deem it relevant because he did not want the CEC to know that he was involved as early as Aug 8.

Mr Ang also asked why the fact that Singh had gone to Ms Khan’s home on Oct 3, 2021, to tell her that the issue of her lie might come up in Parliament the next day failed to feature as an aggravating factor as well since she apparently ignored his guidance.

Singh answered that it was indeed an aggravating factor but was not listed in the recommendations.

Mr Ang then suggested that it was because Singh did not want the CEC to know that he had spoken to Ms Khan privately on Oct 3.

Had the CEC known about the exchange, it might have asked “You knew, then what have you been doing, man, Mr Singh?”, added Mr Ang.

Singh disagreed.

Press conference on the day of the first COP hearing

The prosecution then moved to nail down why the WP opted to hold a press conference on Dec 2, 2021, where Singh first revealed to the public, as well as his fellow CEC members, that he had known of Ms Khan’s lie a few days after she first told it in Parliament on Aug 3 that year.

The prosecution’s case was that Singh moved to make his involvement known as he had learnt on Nov 29, 2021, that Ms Khan and her then aide Loh Pei Ying had been called to give evidence before the Committee of Privileges (COP).

In building the case, Mr Ang pointed out that the press conference was arranged on Nov 30, 36 hours before it was held on Dec 2, and that Singh knew that the COP would begin to hear evidence on the day of the press conference.

Mr Ang also noted that a WP volunteer Mike Lim had told Singh on the evening of Nov 29 that Ms Loh and Ms Khan were called to present themselves before the COP.

He then stated: “The reason you did this is because you wanted to make sure that the WP and you announced this fact before that issue could be raised by Ms Loh or Ms Khan at the COP, agree?”

Singh disagreed.

Mr Ang followed up by asking if CEC members had found out about his prior knowledge of Ms Khan’s lie for the first time at the Dec 2 press conference.

Singh said yes, noting that it had not come up earlier as “we had met with the CEC openly and it was free for anybody and Ms Khan to raise” anything related to that.

“It wasn’t something we were concerned about,” he added.

Prosecution suggests WP leaders met to ‘get your stories straight’

Mr Ang later zoomed in on the two in-person meetings Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal had on Dec 7 and 8 in 2021.

Singh admitted to the court that the trio met to discuss the evidence of Ms Khan, Ms Loh and Mr Yudhishthra Nathan, who also assisted Ms Khan with her MP duties.

By then, the COP had heard Ms Khan, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan testify on Dec 2 and 3.

Mr Ang pointed out that Mr Faisal had told the COP the three WP leaders had met at the office of their town council for two to three hours on both dates.

Asked what the trio had discussed, Singh said they discussed the COP proceedings that had taken place thus far, with the “most important issue” being that they did not know Ms Khan had sent a text message to Ms Loh and Mr Nathan saying the three WP leaders had told her to take the lie to the grave.

“That was completely new to us. We had our DP notes with us, and we checked, and we were very confused why she would say that,” he added. They were surprised and shocked when they learnt of what Ms Khan, Mr Nathan and Ms Loh had testified, he added.

Pressed on whether the WP leaders met to help each other check the chronology of events in relation to Ms Khan’s lie, Singh said no.

“What we checked was what had happened, insofar as our DP notes were concerned, because we were concerned we had missed something out,” he said.

Singh also disagreed when asked if the trio discussed whether there was anything they had missed out in what Ms Khan, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan had told the COP.

“My memory of that meeting was to look into why Raeesah would say we told her to take the lie to the grave, or continue the narrative or whatever version she was using at that time,” he said.

When they met, the central issue “of deep concern” was why Ms Khan would lie, he added.

Singh later corrected his evidence to say he could agree with Mr Ang that the WP leaders discussed whether there was anything that they had missed out on what Ms Loh and Mr Nathan told the COP, not just in relation to what Ms Khan said.

Mr Ang then put it to him that the WP leaders met for two to three hours each time to “align what you have to say to the COP” and “to get your stories straight”.

Singh disagreed with both propositions.

Mr Ang followed up to state that at these meetings, they would have discussed Ms Khan’s Aug 8 message to Ms Loh and Mr Nathan about the WP leaders’ alleged advice to take her lie to the grave, since this had already surfaced before the COP.

Singh said he did not recall, but added that he believed they would have spoken about it since “it is significant”.

Mr Faisal testified before the COP on Dec 9 that year, Singh did so on Dec 10 and 15, and Ms Lim on Dec 13.

‘Your evidence defies logic’

The prosecution at one point accused Singh of putting forward evidence that “defies logic”.

This was after Singh reasoned that it was for Ms Khan’s benefit that the DP was made up of Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal – the three leaders who knew she was a victim of sexual assault – so that she did not have to reveal details of her sexual assault to other people.

He told the court: “There was a matter of a sexual assault. Instinctively, we did not want to let it go beyond too many people given that Raeesah had already told us that she was raped... We didn’t want her to have to go through all the experience (of reliving it).”

Mr Ang then pointed out that it was not public information that Ms Khan was raped until he told the COP, and the whole of Singapore by extension, and asked if it was essential that he used that word.

To that, Singh said it was important for the COP to understand his frame of mind and why he decided to take a more sympathetic and gentle approach.

Asked why he did not say instead that Ms Khan suffered very serious sexual assault without wanting to go into the details, Singh said he determined that he would just tell the COP exactly the word that was used.

“Yes. That’s your level of concern for her,” Mr Ang said in response.

Singh’s statements to the police

Before court was adjourned for the day, the prosecution moved to question Singh about portions of a number of statements he had earlier given to the police.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy stood up to ask for time to go through Singh’s police statements, saying that they “are being given to us right at the point that the question is being asked, and we’d like some time to read it”.

“There’s obvious prejudice because he’s (Singh) in the middle of being cross-examined, I simply cannot discuss evidence with him,” he said.

The judge allowed Mr Jumabhoy to familiarise himself with Singh’s statements overnight before Mr Ang continues his cross-examination on Nov 8.

Singh is not allowed to see his statements until he is questioned about them in court.

As he is still being cross-examined by the prosecution, he is also not allowed to instruct his lawyer, nor is his lawyer allowed to discuss these statements with him.

‘Your evidence is incredible,’ says prosecution to Singh: Key points on day 12 of WP chief’s trial

By Ng Wei Kai and Vanessa Paige Chelvan, The Straits Times, 8 Nov 2024

Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock on Nov 7 sought to poke holes in the credibility and consistency of Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh’s version of events, as the Leader of the Opposition took the stand for the third day in a trial over his alleged lies.

Mr Ang suggested to Singh that he never had in his mind the idea that former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan should clarify her lies in Parliament until Oct 11, 2021.

When Singh intended for Ms Khan to clarify her lies is central to the prosecution’s case as his two charges are for lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP) that he had, at meetings with her on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted her to do so.

Here are the key points from the second day of Singh’s cross-examination:

1. Prosecution: Singh did not intend for Khan to clarify her lie until Oct 11

Mr Ang put it to Singh that he “never had in mind the idea” that Ms Khan would have to clarify her lie to Parliament until Oct 11, 2021.

Singh disagreed with this, saying that he had on Oct 4, 2021.

When asked if he did not intend for her to clarify her lie before that, Singh said he had from Aug 8 that year intended for her to do so.

He said: “From Aug 8 to Oct 4 she had to clarify, after Oct 4 she had to clarify why she lied again.”

Ms Khan first lied to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, giving a false anecdote about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively. She repeated her lie on Oct 4 the same year.

Oct 11, 2021, was when Singh met former WP chief Low Thia Khiang and WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim to discuss plans for dealing with Ms Khan’s lies.

Mr Ang reiterated points brought up by Mr Low’s testimony on Oct 23, 2024, when Mr Low said he told the WP leaders that a press conference was not the right forum for Ms Khan to admit to her lies, and that Parliament was.

Mr Ang said: “And then lo and behold, on Oct 12 when you meet Ms Khan, you tell her for the first time, ‘Ms Khan, you’ve got to go to Parliament and make a personal statement’, correct?”

Singh agreed that this was the first time he met her and told her she had to make a personal statement.

He disagreed that he did not intend for her to clarify her lie before the Oct 11 meeting with Mr Low.

2. Prosecution clashes with Singh over the meaning of ‘I will not judge you’

Mr Ang pressed Singh on what he meant when he told Ms Khan at a meeting on Oct 3, 2021, that “I will not judge you”, one day before she repeated her lie in Parliament.

Singh and Ms Khan have offered different interpretations in court of what was said then.

In his testimony, Singh said he told Ms Khan to take ownership and responsibility, adding that he would not judge her when he sensed her discomfort. “What I meant by that was, I will not judge you if you take ownership and responsibility,” he said.

Ms Khan testified earlier that she had thought Singh meant he would not judge her for continuing the narrative.

On Nov 7, Mr Ang said: “Mr Singh, let me ask you a couple of questions on logic, okay, which will go to show to a great degree your level of honesty and candour.”

Mr Ang said the phrase “I will not judge you” is, on its own, often used to tell a person it is okay to admit wrongdoing to one.

He said: “So, for example, let’s say you don’t want to go to work tomorrow, then you tell your friend, ‘Aiya, I think I’m going to get a medical certificate so I can skip work tomorrow.’ And then your friend says, ‘Okay, go ahead. I won’t judge you.’ ”

Singh replied with a chuckle: “I’ve never heard that before, but I disagree.”

Mr Ang gave another example: “You want to skip a relative’s birthday party (and you say) ‘I’m gonna make up some excuse, I’m not gonna go’. And your wife says, ‘I won’t judge you’ – that’s how ‘I won’t judge you’ is commonly used, agree?”

“No, I disagree,” said Singh.

Mr Ang then asked if Singh meant that if Ms Khan were to do something correct and good the next day, which is to tell the truth, he would not judge her. Singh agreed with this.

“The truth, Mr Singh, was that you were giving her the go-ahead to do something wrong by telling her to continue the narrative, agree?” Mr Ang asked.

Singh disagreed.

Mr Ang also brought up an Oct 7, 2021, e-mail from Ms Khan where she thanked Singh for not judging her, saying this meant she had taken Singh’s statement that he would not judge her as guidance to continue lying.

He said: “Instead of being afraid that you’ll take her to task, she sends you this e-mail to thank you for ‘caring for me and guiding me without judgment’ – is that your evidence that she did this?”

Singh replied that he did not tell her to continue the narrative.

In response, Mr Ang said: “Mr Singh I would have to put it to you that your evidence is incredible, do you agree?”

Singh disagreed.

3. Prosecution questions Singh on the truth of his statements to the COP

Mr Ang again scrutinised what Singh said in court and to the COP, which investigated Ms Khan’s lies.

He asked Singh to clarify if he intended for Ms Khan to come clean in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021, whether or not the matter came up that day.

Mr Ang said: “Your version in court is that, if it comes up, she has to clear it up. But not otherwise, correct?”

Singh disagreed, saying: “No that’s not my version, it’s what I’ve said in court but if the matter did not come up, she would have to clarify it.”

Mr Ang asked if Singh meant Ms Khan would have to clarify it on that day even if it were not brought up, or he meant she would have to clarify it some time in the future.

Singh agreed that he meant she would have to deal with it some time in the future.

To this, Mr Ang said: “So, she would have to deal with it some time in the future – so that’s one version. Insofar as there is a second version, which is that she has to raise it and tell the truth on Oct 4 whether it comes up or not, that would be false?”

Singh said there is no second version.

Mr Ang made the point that if one were to read the minutes from the COP and come to the view that the second statement was what Singh was telling the COP, this would be a false statement to the COP.

Singh agreed that it would not be what was said.

Mr Ang then said: “It would be a false statement to the COP because you said that’s false.”

Singh said: “Subject to what is actually said in the COP, I would agree.”

He had previously contested this reading of his statements to the COP.

4. Prosecution says it is testing Singh’s credibility

Mr Ang asked Singh if there is a difference to him between a clarification and a personal statement, to which Singh said yes.

He then asked Singh what he meant when he said Ms Khan had had an opportunity to admit to her untruth by way of a clarification after a speech by Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021 – where the minister said Ms Khan’s allegations would be investigated.

Mr Ang said: “Do you mean to say that you thought she could just say, ‘Mr Shanmugam, the anecdote I gave on Aug 3 was false’, and then just sit down and wait for further questions from the minister or other MPs?”

Singh replied that he would not know what the subsequent questions would be, but at a minimum Ms Khan would have to share that she inserted herself into the anecdote to make it more believable.

Mr Ang then asked Singh what else he expected Ms Khan to say during her apology. “Let’s be real, Mr Singh, would you agree that if she stood up in Parliament and answered Minister Shanmugam and said she had lied on Aug 3, she would not have been asked many, many clarifications by MPs?”

To this Singh said: “Subject to her replies, I cannot answer that question.”

Mr Ang then said: “I am asking you because you are giving evidence in court now. We are testing your credibility. If you don’t want to answer, that’s fine. We will make submissions on that.

“We have it on record that you don’t want to answer your question.”

Singh said: “I believe I am answering your question, I don’t know what the PAP (People’s Action Party) MPs would ask.”

5. Prosecution: Singh is changing his evidence as he goes along

Mr Ang also asked Singh about a meeting between Singh, Ms Lim, Ms Khan and WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap on Aug 8, 2021.

He asked Singh if the three had discussed Ms Khan’s lie after she left the meeting.

Singh said he could not recall, and did not have that impression.

The prosecution has previously argued that Singh had, at that Aug 8 meeting, been prepared for Ms Khan and the WP leaders to “take (the matter) to the grave”.

Mr Ang added that Ms Lim and Mr Faisal had also told the COP that there was never any such discussion, and asked: “So a serious matter had been revealed to you all, one of your WP MPs lied in Parliament, made an accusation against the police which cannot be substantiated, and the three of you did not discuss what are the next steps that should be taken, is that correct?”

Singh said: “That is correct.”

Asked if the WP leaders never discussed when Ms Khan should correct her lie, Singh said: “Yes, because we believed the nature of the revelation was a deeply, deeply personal one, and our state of mind was to deal with the matter as sensitively as we could.”

Given there was no discussion, who would follow up with Ms Khan on the issue, Mr Ang asked.

Singh said that as secretary-general of the party he took responsibility, and he thought the expectation was that he – as the most senior leader – would follow up.

Mr Ang said: “Yes, of course, you are the secretary-general, but it is not every time that the top person has to do everything.

“So my question to you is, you wouldn’t know because you didn’t discuss with Ms Lim and Mr Faisal who would be following up on this matter?”

Singh said this was correct.

Mr Ang also asked Singh if there were any notes or minutes taken of the meeting, or any e-mails or text messages recording the serious matter discussed. Singh said there were none, as far as he knew.

Mr Ang said: “So there’s no written record at all of this meeting and what was discussed about this lie, correct?”

“Yes, that is correct,” said Singh.

Mr Ang then noted that there were messages and e-mails discussing other issues to do with Ms Khan’s speech, but none to do with her lie.

To this, Singh said it was their instinct not to verbalise it or spread the matter beyond the three of them, as it included the very personal issue of Ms Khan’s own sexual assault – which she revealed to the WP leaders at that meeting.

Mr Ang said: “Meaning that you didn’t want to put it on text or e-mail to Mr Faisal or Ms Lim that this was discussed, that she lied and that she was a sexual assault survivor?”

Singh said the trio did not see any need to.

Mr Ang then asked Singh to clarify if the reason they did not put down information from the meeting was that it was sensitive and they did not want it to spread.

Singh replied: “No, let me be clear. The reason we didn’t talk about it is because all of us understood what was said and there was no need for us to commit to writing what had happened.”

Mr Ang said: “You see, Mr Singh, you are just changing your evidence as we go along... Now you are saying there’s no need to because what’s the point of having it in writing – so what is the truth?”

Singh said in response: “The truth is quite clear if you look at my answers carefully. Originally I had mentioned that we did not take any minutes, there is no written record of the meeting, that is the fact.”

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 11 (6 Nov 2024)

‘You’re not being very honest in your evidence’: Prosecution grills WP chief Pritam Singh at trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Vanessa Paige Chelvan, The Straits Times, 7 Nov 2024

Workers’ Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh was cross-examined in rapid-fire style for almost five hours on Nov 6, as the prosecution sought to show that he had not been entirely honest in his testimony to the court, based on the contradictions in Singh’s testimony on multiple areas.

The exchange turned particularly heated when Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock accused Singh of changing his evidence as he tried to pin down when the WP chief no longer deemed it a prerequisite for former WP MP Raeesah Khan to speak to her parents before coming clean in Parliament.

Ms Khan, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 that same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to the parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to look into the lying controversy involving Ms Khan.

He earlier told the court that he did not come up with an explicit plan on how to resolve Ms Khan’s lie at a meeting with her, WP chairman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap on Aug 8, 2021, due to the gravity of Ms Khan’s revelation to them that she was a victim of sexual assault.

His position then was that this was a matter Ms Khan would have to “settle herself”, including having to speak to her parents, before she could be able to make a clarification in Parliament, he testified.

Mr Ang focused his questioning on when Singh’s stance changed as he had testified that he had not asked Ms Khan if she had cleared the matter with her parents when they met on Oct 3, 2021.

Yet, Singh said he made clear to Ms Khan that she had to take ownership and responsibility over her lie, and tell the truth when Parliament sat the next day.

The cross-examination culminated to a point where Mr Ang put to Singh towards the end of the 11th day of the WP chief’s trial that he was not being honest in his evidence to the court.

This came up when Mr Ang was pressing Singh on why the condition for Ms Khan to tell her parents was no longer relevant after she doubled down on her lie in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.

In response, Singh said after Oct 4, the circumstances had evolved to Ms Khan having to come up with a statement, instead of merely clarifying her untruth in Parliament.

When Mr Ang pointed out to Singh that he had told the Committee of Privileges (COP) he was pretty sure Ms Khan needed time to clear the matter with her parents, Singh said: “And that was something that she would have to do to produce that statement.”

Mr Ang then said: “I’m sad to say but I have to suggest to you that you’re not being very honest in your evidence. Do you agree?”

Singh disagreed.

The WP chief also disagreed that he had contradicted his own testimony each time Mr Ang raised one.

There were several instances where he qualified his answers while doing so, such as when Mr Ang asked if the WP central executive committee (CEC) should have been informed first if Singh wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament on Oct 5, 2021.

Singh disagreed and said one of the main reasons the CEC met on Oct 29 was to “lock in Raeesah’s statement that she was going to make in Parliament”.

Asked if he meant to say that the CEC need not be informed beforehand if Ms Khan admitted to the untruth at the Oct 5 sitting, Singh said it did not cross the WP leaders’ minds when they met after Ms Khan doubled down on her untruth on Oct 4.

“On Oct 4, the more important issue that we were thinking about was why Ms Khan would tell a lie again,” he added. “Our view was we had to understand that first and the timeline was just too short to have a CEC meeting.”

At one point, Mr Ang asked Singh if he felt he was being “crystal clear” to Ms Khan that she would have to come clean on Oct 4, 2021, when he told her the day before that she had to take ownership and responsibility of her lie and that he would not judge her.

Singh said yes. To this, Mr Ang said Singh was a lawyer who was “quite capable of using words which are very clear”. “All you needed to say... was, if it comes out, please just tell the truth. Correct?”

Singh replied that because he was dealing with an MP, he “chose words that, in my view, were appropriate for her”.

When grilled about this at another point, Singh said Ms Khan is an MP in her own right, so he would expect her to understand clearly what taking ownership and responsibility meant.

‘Changing your evidence now?’

Mr Ang accused Singh of changing his evidence when the prosecutor pursued the line of reasoning that Singh had thought Ms Khan was not ready to admit her lie in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.

The WP chief had earlier testified that as at Oct 3, Ms Khan had not updated him on whether she had told her parents about having been a victim of sexual assault herself.

Singh’s answer was: “No, I wouldn’t say so because her position was not clear to me because I hadn’t raised it with her. She hadn’t brought it up to me as well.”

This prompted Mr Ang to ask: “Mr Singh, are you changing your evidence now?”

When Singh denied this, Mr Ang pointed out that he had earlier told the court that Ms Khan had to inform him that she had spoken to her parents and was ready to come clean before she could correct her lie in Parliament, but none of that had happened as at Oct 3, 2021.

He then put it to Singh that his frame of mind on Oct 3 would thus be that Ms Khan could not come clean in Parliament.

To this suggestion, Singh said: “No, I would disagree because on Oct 3 to her house...”

Mr Ang cut him off, saying: “Mr Singh, I am talking about before you went to her house… Do you want to change your evidence?”

Singh asked if the prosecutor could repeat his question for clarity “to make sure you don’t feel like I’m changing my evidence”.

Mr Ang then asked if Singh’s frame of mind before he met Ms Khan on Oct 3 was that she could not tell the truth on Oct 4.

“I am not certain of that because there’s an e-mail on Oct 1,” Singh replied.

Before Singh could complete the sentence, Mr Ang said: “Mr Singh, so you are changing your evidence.”

“My evidence is what it is,” Singh replied, as Mr Ang interjected to say: “Okay, so your evidence is what it is, and we will make submissions on that.”

“Sure,” Singh said.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan stepped in at one point to clarify certain parts of Singh’s testimony, where he said that before visiting Ms Khan on Oct 3, he felt she could tell the truth the next day in Parliament.

Singh told the court there was no reason for him to think that Ms Khan could not tell the truth before he met her on Oct 3.

“She hadn’t come back to me up till Oct 3 before I saw her. At that point, yes, I had not checked with her whether she was ready to clarify the untruth,” he added.

To this, Mr Ang again pointed out that Singh’s evidence has changed. “Your evidence is that on Oct 3, she hasn’t come back to me, but she can tell the truth on Oct 4,” he said.

Mr Ang later asked: “At which point in time did it come to you that (Ms Khan) can tell the truth on the Oct 4 Parliament sitting even though she has not come back to you that she has cleared it with her parents?”

Singh said it was a conclusion he drew after his Oct 3 meeting with Ms Khan.

“Exactly,” Mr Ang said, stating that this meant Singh’s frame of mind before meeting Ms Khan on Oct 3 was that she could not tell the truth on Oct 4 because she had not told him whether she had informed her parents.

“That wouldn’t be the only conclusion I would draw,” Singh said. “She hasn’t come back to me, that’s the only fact.”

Mr Ang followed up by suggesting that one conclusion he could draw was that Ms Khan was not able to tell the truth on Oct 4.

When Singh disagreed and reiterated that there was no reason for him to opine that she would not be able to tell the truth, Mr Ang said: “So, that’s why we went down these questions, you see.”

Singh stood his ground when Mr Ang again questioned if he did not think Ms Khan could tell the truth on Oct 4 before the Oct 3 meeting until he met her.

“Well, it’s a bit strange. I would disagree with that. As a person, as an MP, there is no reason for me to think that she can’t tell the truth,” the WP chief said.

Mr Ang persisted. “The question is not whether or not one is able to open their mouth and speak. I think we all know what we’re talking about here in this courtroom.

“So if you want to be obtuse, that’s fine. But the question is a very simple one,” he said, as he posed his question to Singh again.

“You framed it better now. I agree,” Singh said at this point.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Mr Ang said in response, prompting Singh to say: “I am not trying to be sarcastic here.”

After more back-and-forth around the same issue, Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, stood up to object to the way the questions were posed, pointing out that his client was cut off on a number of occasions.

The judge then said he would like to record Singh’s full answer.

Singh’s fuller response was that Ms Khan had by Oct 3 not given him a response on whether she was ready to come clean in Parliament after he had given her time to speak to her parents.

After visiting her on Oct 3, “I got no indication from her that she would have difficulty with telling the truth”, he said.

Singh objected when Mr Ang put to him that he did not arrange to meet Ms Khan immediately after she doubled down on her lie on Oct 4 and told her that she should have come clean because she was just acting according to his guidance from the night before.

“I would have to disagree very vehemently with that,” he said.

He said he did not meet Ms Khan immediately as a parliamentary debate around the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill was ongoing, and he might have to respond if other MPs raised questions about his speech on the legislation.

Pritam contradicted himself, says prosecution: Key points on Day 11 of WP chief’s trial

By Ng Wei Kai and Christine Tan, The Straits Times, 7 Nov 2024

Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh was accused of contradicting himself in statements to court and a parliamentary committee as he took the stand for the second day in a trial over his alleged lies.

On Nov 6, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock put it to Singh that he had given contradictory statements about interactions he had with former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan.

Singh had given evidence under questioning from his lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, the day before.

The Leader of the Opposition is fighting two charges over lying to the Committee of Privileges (COP) that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her lie to Parliament.

The truth of what happened between the two in the lead up to and aftermath of her lies has become a central point of contention between the prosecution and defence.

Here are the key points from Singh’s cross-examination:

1. Prosecution: What Singh told the COP about Oct 3 meeting with Khan contradicts what he told the court

Mr Ang questioned Singh’s accounts of his expectations of Ms Khan on Oct 4, 2021 – the day she repeated her lie in Parliament.

He said: “I’m putting it to you that it’s contradictory. You have told the court that she doesn’t have to clarify (her lie) if the matter is not raised, but at the COP, you have told the COP that regardless of whether it’s raised, it was very clear that what you told her was that she has to clarify the next day.

“My question is, so which is the truth?”

Singh said the truth was what he said in court.

He said that from his COP replies, it was quite clear that if the matter had come up in Parliament on Oct 4, he would have expected her to clarify the matter. But even if it did not, it would have to be clarified “at some point”, he added.

Singh said in hindsight, it was possible that his words during the COP investigation suggested that Ms Khan would have to come up with a personal statement.

“But at other places in the COP report, I make it quite clear that she would have to clarify the statement on Oct 4 if it came up.”

To this, Mr Ang asked again if what Singh told the court was true, and if what he said to the COP was not.

Singh disagreed with this. He said: “I think my frame of mind... was on Oct 3, she would have to clarify.”

Behind this exchange are conflicting accounts of a meeting between Singh and Ms Khan on Oct 3, 2021, one day before she repeated her lie in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.

Both parties have offered different interpretations in court of what was said then.

On Nov 5, 2024, Singh said he told Ms Khan to take ownership and responsibility, adding that he would not judge her when he sensed her discomfort. “What I meant by that was, I will not judge you if you take ownership and responsibility,” he added.

Ms Khan testified earlier that she thought Singh meant he would not judge her for continuing the narrative.

Mr Ang also referred Singh to parts of the COP transcripts where Singh had said it was “absolutely” clear he wanted Ms Khan to make a clarification in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021, whether or not the issue came up.

He asked: “So if the matter was not brought up on Oct 4, in other words, no one raised this issue about her anecdote again on Oct 4, then she would not have to stand up in Parliament; she could do it at some later point?”

Singh said yes.

Singh also disagreed that his answers to the COP and in court were inconsistent.

He said Second Minister for Law Edwin Tong had asked during the COP: “Even if it (Ms Khan’s lie) doesn’t come up tomorrow, you would still do the same thing?”

Singh said: “And my reply ‘absolutely’ was in reference to ‘the same thing’, and the same thing would be to tell the truth.”

To this Mr Ang said: “So your answer... is only in relation to telling the truth. You’ve ignored Mr Tong’s other part of his question of ‘whether or not it comes up tomorrow’?”

Singh replied: “I think there’s no other interpretation.”

2. Prosecution: Singh was trying to mislead the COP on his role in Khan’s clarification

Mr Ang also questioned Singh about his involvement in clearing a line that Ms Khan had added to a statement to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, and what he had said about this to the COP.

The line was: “I believe that given the topic at hand, consent is imperative, not least to avoid re-victimisation,” referring to getting consent from the purported victim.

Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament on Aug 3 was an anecdote about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively.

Mr Ang asked Singh if he had drafted the initial clarification, and if Singh had approved the addition.

To this Singh said: “Yes, I recall saying okay.”

Mr Ang said: “You told the COP that ‘she adds another line in that statement, doesn’t check with me and then makes the statement in the House’. That’s not correct, is it?”

Singh disagreed, saying: “When I say ‘doesn’t check with me’, what I meant was that she did not tell me she was going to add to that draft.”

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan then interjected to ask Singh if what he meant was that Ms Khan had added another line, but did not check with him before doing so, and proceeded to make that statement in Parliament.

“But you’re saying that... somewhere in between ‘doesn’t check with me’ and then ‘makes a statement in the House’, she does check with you whether you are fine with the amendment,” the judge said.

To which Singh replied: “Your rendition would be correct.”

The judge asked why Singh did not say that Ms Khan did check the final statement with him.

Singh said his response to the COP was because he did not have the WhatsApp chats to refer to.

Mr Ang suggested that Singh forgot that he had cleared the amended statement with the added line.

Singh disagreed.

Mr Ang then suggested that Singh was trying to give the COP a misleading impression that Ms Khan added the line to her clarification that he had drafted, and read it to the House without checking with him or clearing with him her amendment.

Singh disagreed again.

3. Singh: WP CEC did not need to be informed before Khan came clean

Mr Ang also questioned Singh on his and the WP’s decision to not pressure Ms Khan to come clean in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021.

Mr Ang asked Singh to clarify if the WP’s top decision-making body – the central executive committee (CEC) – would have to be informed if Ms Khan was going to admit to lying on Oct 5, 2021.

Singh replied: “That did not cross our minds on Oct 4. The more important issue that we were thinking about was why Ms Khan would tell a lie again, and our view was we had to understand that first and the timeline was just too short to have a CEC meeting.”

Mr Ang further asked if Singh agreed that the CEC should have been informed in advance if Ms Khan was going to reveal the truth on Oct 5. Singh said it would depend if that was practically possible, given the timeline.

Mr Ang then asked if it was correct to say it was important for the CEC to have known what happened and for Ms Khan to tell them before she made a statement in Parliament because her admission would affect the WP.

Singh replied that in the ordinary course of things, he would agree.

Mr Ang asked Singh to clarify if the reason there was no plan for Ms Khan to come clean was that her revelation to WP leaders of her own sexual assault was very serious, and that Singh was prepared to give her time and space to speak to her parents about it.

Singh agreed.

Mr Ang said: “And it did not cross your mind as something that you were going to pressure her repeatedly, correct?”

“That is correct,” Singh replied.

4. Prosecution questions Singh about meeting with Low

Mr Ang also questioned Singh on his meeting with former WP chief Low Thia Khiang and WP chair Sylvia Lim on Oct 11, 2021, to discuss how to handle the issue.

Mr Low took the stand on Oct 23 as a witness for the prosecution.

Mr Ang asked Singh if the purpose of the meeting was to seek his advice on Ms Khan’s lie, and tell him about the lie and the police’s request to interview her.

Singh agreed on the first two points but said he did not recall the third point, adding later that the main reason for the meeting was different.

Asked if he recalled Ms Lim’s statement that the Government did not know about Ms Khan’s lie as there were many police stations in Singapore, Singh said he did not.

When asked again, he said: “No, I don’t. It was an unremarkable meeting to me.”

Mr Ang also asked Singh multiple questions about what he said to Mr Low on his plans for Ms Khan to come clean to Parliament.

Mr Ang said: “You didn’t tell Mr Low that you’d been waiting since August for her to get back to you about whether she had checked with her parents about the sexual assault, and she hadn’t updated you?”

Singh said the discussion was only about Ms Khan repeating the lie, and he was seeking Mr Low’s advice on how to resolve it.

Mr Ang also asked if by this Singh meant he had told Mr Low that Ms Khan had lied in August and again in October. Singh said he believed so.

Mr Ang then asked if the WP chief had not told Mr Low that Ms Khan had admitted her lie to WP leaders a few days after she said it in Parliament.

Singh agreed, adding that the meeting’s focus was on finding the best way to resolve the issue quickly.

Clarifying once more, Mr Ang said: “You remember this clearly, right? Just to be very clear, you remember clearly that you did not tell Mr Low that you, Sylvia Lim and (WP vice-chair) Faisal Manap knew about the sexual assault since August.”

Singh said: “I can’t confirm that confidently. I’m not sure.”

5. Singh says Nathan and Loh withheld information from him, are liars

Mr Ang also questioned Singh on his relationship with Ms Khan’s former party aides Mr Yudhishthra Nathan and Ms Loh Pei Ying, who have publicly disagreed with Singh’s handling of Ms Khan’s lies.

He asked Singh if he would describe the pair as “very decent people”, to which Singh replied that he did describe them as such during the COP in December 2021.

Mr Ang also asked if Singh worked well with the pair. He replied: “Yeah, they follow instructions.”

Mr Ang then asked if Singh now thought they were both liars after testifying during the trial.

To this Singh said: “I would not say that at this point. But the fact is there was certain information withheld from me that has changed my view of them.”

Mr Ang continued to press this point, saying to Singh: “No, no, no, you’ve been in court. You’ve heard your counsel call them liars?”

Singh replied: “Well with regard to what has transpired in court, yes.”

Mr Ang then asked Singh if he believed either of them had reason to want to damage the WP.

Singh said he did not know, but when asked again if he was aware of any possible reasons, cited how Mr Nathan had in 2019 publicly criticised a speech by Singh on the WP’s stance on LGBTQ issues.

Singh said: “It’s not something our members do and that did cause some consternation in the party, so I don’t think it would extend to damage but that’s not commonly how a WP member behaves.”

Mr Ang then asked: “But that’s not damaging the WP. It’s just a disagreement with your views, correct?”

Singh replied: “That can be handled internally. You don’t publicise it.”

6. Singh says he had ‘nothing to hide’

Singh was also questioned on his interactions with Mr Nathan and Ms Loh by his lawyer before the cross-examination began.

Mr Jumabhoy asked Singh about a point Ms Loh made during a disciplinary panel convened by the WP on Ms Khan.

Referring to notes on the meeting, Mr Jumabhoy asked Singh about Ms Loh’s first argument.

Singh said the point was made by Ms Loh that the party would have some responsibility over what had happened before Nov 1, when Ms Khan admitted to her lie.

Singh said: “I believe she was alluding to the fact that we knew Raeesah had lied from Aug 8, 2021, and then she says that this is something that the COP may ask.”

When asked what his response to this was, Singh said he did not respond because it was something that did not concern him vis-a-vis what the COP would ask because he had decided that Ms Khan needed time to settle the issue of her sexual assault.

He said: “I would expect some criticism from that... but these are the decisions one has to make...

“There was nothing really for me to hide... I did not have too much concern about what she was suggesting vis-a-vis what the COP may ask.”

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 10 (5 Nov 2024)

Pritam Singh says he did not tell Raeesah Khan to take lie to the grave

He also explains what he meant when he said later that he would not judge her

By Ng Wei Kai, The Straits Times, 6 Nov 2024

Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh said he did not tell former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan to “take the lie to the grave” on Aug 8, 2021, as he gave evidence in a trial over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee.

Giving his version of events in court on Nov 5, 2024, Singh said when he told Ms Khan at a later meeting on Oct 3, 2021, that he would not judge her, he meant he would not do so if she took ownership and responsibility for her lie to Parliament.

What was said in these two meetings is central to the trial where Singh is fighting two charges over lying to the Committee of Privileges that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her lie to Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1 that year.

On Nov 5, 2024, Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy asked the Leader of the Opposition if he had at the first meeting on Aug 8 told Ms Khan to take her lie to the grave.

“No, I did not,” Singh replied.

The prosecution has argued that Singh had, at the Aug 8, 2021, meeting, been prepared for Ms Khan and the WP leaders to “take (the matter) to the grave”.

“It was clear to Ms Khan then that her party leaders did not want her to clarify the untruth and that she could leave the matter be,” Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock said on Oct 14, 2024, during the trial.

Singh told the court that after the Aug 8 meeting, he had made no “specific decision” on what had to be done. “In my mind, I knew that the matter would have to be clarified,” he added.

Asked if this was conveyed to Ms Khan at that meeting, Singh said it was not. Because of Ms Khan’s emotional state after telling party leaders about how she had been sexually assaulted in the past, he determined it would be better for her to settle herself, and the party would deal with the matter when she was ready, Singh said.

Singh said he was quite sure that the Government would follow up on Ms Khan’s anecdote on Aug 3, 2021, about police conduct, as then Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan had made it clear by saying the matter would not be swept aside.

“I know how the PAP (People’s Action Party) operates. And whenever there’s a chance to fix an opposition MP, or get tough at the opposition, they will jump at the chance,” Singh said.

Referring to text messages given to the court, Singh said he had repeatedly asked Ms Khan for more information about her anecdote between Aug 3 and 7.

He said she initially told him she was still trying to contact the victim, before admitting to him over a call on Aug 7 that the anecdote was false.

Asked for his response to her admission, Singh said: “I was very unhappy with her. I was actually very upset, and I cut the call and I told her we’ll talk about this.”

Singh then recounted the meeting on Aug 8, 2021, at his house between Ms Khan, himself, WP chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap. He said the party leaders were shocked when Ms Khan revealed she was sexually assaulted at age 18.

Asked by Singh who knew about the matter, Ms Khan said her husband, therapist and party aides Yudhishthra Nathan and Loh Pei Ying.

Singh said the conversation then moved to what was “politically more pressing” at that time – the reactions of some of the Muslim community in Singapore to Ms Khan’s speech, which also touched on female genital mutilation.

He told the court that the party leaders took Ms Khan at her word and did not ask her about the sexual assault. He added that she was very emotional at that point, and pursuing the matter was not on his mind at the time.

Singh also gave his account of the second meeting on Oct 3, 2021, which was held at Ms Khan’s house one day before she repeated her lie in Parliament on Oct 4.

“I wanted to speak to her. I shared with her that she’s gonna be back in Parliament. And the matter of her anecdote might come up,” Singh said.

“And if it did come up, she would have to take ownership and responsibility over the issue.”

Asked by Mr Jumabhoy what he meant by taking ownership and responsibility, Singh said: “I mean in the context of someone who had lied to me, lied to Parliament, and tried to cover up the lie in the course of my trying to find out more about it, in my view those words were clear that she had to tell the truth.

“And that’s what I meant by she had to take ownership and responsibility.”

Singh added that when he told Ms Khan to take ownership and responsibility, she started getting a little nervous and uncomfortable.

“I followed that up by telling her I will not judge you,” Singh said. “And what I meant by that was, I will not judge you if you take ownership and responsibility.”

Singh said Ms Khan had no further questions, which he took to mean that she understood “what she had to do” if the matter came up.

Ms Khan testified earlier that she thought Singh meant he would not judge her for continuing the narrative.

The prosecution has contended that “there was simply no way” Singh intended for Ms Khan’s lies to be clarified when Parliament sat on Oct 4, 2021.

Singh’s testimony also addressed other issues which came up earlier over the course of the trial.

The prosecution has said that there was no discussion about the untrue anecdote between Singh and Ms Khan from Aug 8 to Oct 3, 2021, let alone the fact that it ought to be clarified in Parliament.

“September came and went. We come to October. Between Aug 8 and Oct 2, silence by the accused person. Not a whisper from him about this untruth, what to do, whether (Ms Khan) had to correct it, how to correct it. It’s as if the matter had been buried,” Mr Ang told the court previously.

Asked what he and the WP were occupied with at the time, Singh said the period between August and October 2021 was “probably the busiest period for us throughout this term, even to date”.

He added that in August 2021, he and the party were busy preparing their positions for a parliamentary discussion on the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement, which he said was the most significant political issue in Singapore at the time.

In September 2021, Singh said WP was busy preparing for the debate on the Foreign Interference (Countermeasures) Bill, which it opposed.

This, along with Ms Khan missing Parliament in September due to shingles, meant that no steps were taken to clarify the matter that month, he added.

Singh also addressed the roles of Ms Loh and Mr Nathan, who have been called as prosecution witnesses. He recounted a meeting on Oct 12, 2021, between himself and the duo.

Singh said Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were not at an earlier meeting he had that day with Ms Khan and Ms Lim, as “they had no role to play in my decision-making process as to what Raeesah had to do”.

He added that Ms Khan’s next course of action was a matter for the party leadership to determine, and they had already decided she should clarify her lie in Parliament.

At the Oct 12, 2021 meeting, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan did not appear keen for Ms Khan to admit to the truth, Singh said.

He added that Mr Nathan in particular suggested continuing with Ms Khan’s lie by saying that any clarification in Parliament should just cover the fact that she could not confirm the person’s age.

He said: “That was very strange to me because (of) where matters had already arrived at.”

Singh added it was very clear to him that Mr Nathan was suggesting “tripling down on her lie by manufacturing some other facts”.

“It was a ridiculous suggestion. I rejected it,” he said.

Singh will take the stand again on Nov 6, with the prosecution set to begin its cross-examination by late morning.

Judge rules Pritam Singh has case to answer: Key points on Day 10 of WP chief’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting, Correspondent, The Straits Times, 6 Nov 2024

Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh opted to give evidence before the court on Nov 5, after Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan ruled that there is a case for him to answer for both his charges.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy had earlier sought to throw out both charges against the Leader of the Opposition over his alleged lies to Parliament’s Committee of Privileges (COP).

The prosecution wrapped up its case on Oct 24 after calling on four witnesses, including former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan.

On Nov 5, the judge found the prosecution’s case to be sufficiently strong in relation to both charges. Singh was asked to present his defence and chose to give evidence before the court.

Singh is accused of lying on two occasions to the COP convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was purportedly treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 that same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are the key points made by the defence and prosecution, and the judge’s remarks on their submissions:

1. Defence: Charges are ‘linguistic acrobatics’ and ‘defective’

In arguing that the prosecution failed to make a case against Singh, Mr Jumabhoy said each charge as currently drafted is “defective” as a matter of law because it does not identify the specific question posed by the COP, and the specific answer given by Singh that is alleged to be false.

In particular, Singh did not use the words Ms Khan alleged he uttered to her after she lied in Parliament in August 2021, which were to “take it to the grave”, or to “continue the narrative”, the lawyer said.

He added that Singh did not tell Ms Khan that he would not judge her for continuing the lie. “And for very good reason: Ms Khan and the truth make strange bedfellows. It would defy credibility to rely on her as a witness of truth.”

He also argued that “linguistic acrobatics” are inherent in both charges, and that the prosecution relied on an amalgamation of Singh’s answers to the COP in making its claims.

This amalgamation may be interpreted in several ways, and cannot be relied on to show a clear or deliberate intention by Singh to make a false answer to the COP, Mr Jumabhoy added.

But the prosecution said the defence’s claim that its charges “fail from the outset” is surprising and plainly misconceived.

In its written submissions, the prosecution, led by Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock, argued that it “cannot seriously be the defence’s position” that the charges are vague as to whether the accused did indeed give any answers to the COP. This is because the relevant evidence annexed to the charges plainly sets out the COP’s questions and Singh’s answers, it said.

The prosecution also argued that Singh lied in different instances of his COP testimony, and used different words on different occasions to convey the same answer.

“It is not only practical but also fair to the accused, that he is required to answer only a single charge setting out the one false answer, which sets out the gist of what the accused said in his testimony to the COP, through answering a series of questions,” it said.

In striking down the defence’s “no case to answer” bid, Judge Tan said the prosecution’s approach is “sound and consistent” with legal requirements.

He also agreed with the prosecution that it is only practical and fair to Singh to have to answer to a single charge setting out one false answer, rather than have multiple charges levelled against the accused.

2. Defence: Evidence for first charge is ‘inherently incredible’

The defence said evidence for the first charge is “inherently so incredible that no reasonable person would accept it as being true”.

Mr Jumabhoy said Ms Khan gave three accounts of a meeting on Aug 8, 2021, when she told the WP chief, party chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap that she had lied in Parliament on Aug 3.

These accounts were given during her COP appearances and testimony before the court, he said.

The first was Ms Khan’s account to the COP on Dec 2, 2021, that the WP leaders’ reaction was that “if I were not to be pressed, then the best thing to do would be to retain the narrative that I began in August”.

The second was her testimony at her third appearance before the COP on Dec 22, 2021, where she was very clear that Singh used the words “take it to the grave” at the Aug 8 meeting.

The third was her testimony before the court on Singh’s response to her admission that she had lied in Parliament. She said Singh listened, was maybe “like, a bit upset over the situation”, and spoke about putting her before the COP. He then said, “this would probably be something that we would have to take to the grave”.

Listing these, Mr Jumabhoy said there is an obvious difference between retaining the narrative if not pressed and taking the lie to the grave.

The suggestion to take the lie to the grave is fundamentally different from not volunteering the truth, he added.

He also said that an Aug 8 text message from Ms Khan to WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan – where she said “they’ve agreed that the best thing to do is to take the information to the grave” – should be “treated with utmost circumspect”.

It was sent by a person who has proven herself quite capable of lying to Singh and her friends via text message, he said.

The prosecution responded that Ms Khan’s evidence in relation to the Aug 8 meeting “remains clear and credible” despite the defence’s attempt to cast doubt.

It noted that Ms Khan had disagreed that the accounts were different and said that during the Aug 8 meeting, the WP leaders’ assumption was that the untruth would not come up, so they would take it to the grave.

“It has never been Ms Khan’s evidence, whether at the COP or in this court, that she had been advised at the Aug 8 meeting to tell the truth if the issue came up,” it said.

It added that Ms Khan’s evidence was that she and the WP leaders did not discuss that possibility at the meeting – the first time she received guidance on what to do if pressed was at another meeting on Oct 3, 2021, when Singh told her he would not judge her for continuing the narrative.

The prosecution also said part of the defence’s argument was “perplexing”. The defence had argued that “take (it) to the grave” can have different meanings, and that it is unreliable to rely on Ms Khan’s interpretation of the phrase without also referring to what Singh meant.

It said the defence had earlier claimed that Singh did not say such a phrase at the Aug 8 meeting, but now appears to have taken a less categorical position on this claim.

“If the accused’s position is that he meant something else by the phrase, then it is for the accused to state so from the witness box,” the prosecution said.

The prosecution said there was no reason for Ms Khan to lie to the two WP cadres about being told to take her lie to the grave, since she had already come clean to them and party leaders about her lie to Parliament.

Ms Khan would have known any lie “would have unravelled almost immediately” since she knew the cadres were meeting Singh on Aug 10, 2021, it added.

This demonstrates that Ms Khan’s text message was reliable evidence of what transpired at the Aug 8 meeting, it stated.

Judge Tan said the court was satisfied of the requirements to call Singh to testify in relation to the interpretation of his answers to the COP and the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from that, including whether his allegedly false answer was made wilfully.

3. Prosecution: Judge should ‘keep an open mind’ before trial concludes

The prosecution, in its written submissions, urged the judge to “keep an open mind” as to the accuracy of the evidence of any witness before the trial concludes.

The evaluation of evidence should be done only at the end of the trial, not at its present stage, it said.

In order for the defence to be called at the close of the prosecution’s case, it only has to establish that there is “some evidence, not inherently incredible”, which satisfies each and every element of the charges, the prosecution pointed out, citing case law.

This is different from the ultimate question at the conclusion of trial, which is whether every element of the offence has been established “beyond a reasonable doubt”, the prosecution said.

The court should disregard evidence cited by the prosecution only where it “has been so discredited as a result of cross-examination or is so manifestly unreliable that no reasonable tribunal could safely convict on it”, it said.

In spelling out his decision, Judge Tan reiterated the prosecution’s points, including the fact that the threshold that the prosecution has to meet at the close of its case must be carefully distinguished from the ultimate question at the end of the trial.

Citing case law, he noted that there remains a case to answer “if credibility is merely shaken” at the end of the prosecution case.

Judge Tan added: “All in all, for both charges, I am of the view that the requirements for the accused to enter his defence for both charges have been met.”

Asked to give evidence under oath and be cross-examined by the prosecution, or remain silent and allow the court to draw inferences from this decision, Singh said he will give evidence.

He said: “Your Honour, I’ve understood what you have said. I elect to give evidence before the court.”

4. Judge rules that Singh’s charges do not need to be amended

At any time before a judgment is given, the court may alter a charge or frame a new charge, whether in substitution for or in addition to the existing charge. Singh’s case is no exception.

At the last hearing on Oct 24, Judge Tan requested for clarity regarding the basis for Singh’s first charge, while he left it to the parties to decide if they want to address the issue of whether the second charge can or should be amended.

While the defence took the position that both of Singh’s charges were “defective”, the prosecution acted on the judge’s request by arguing that there was no need to amend the charges.

The prosecution reasoned that Singh had not taken the position that he did not understand the case that he has to meet, or that he was in doubt or confused by the charges or their respective annexures, where the relevant extracts of the minutes of evidence from the COP were appended.

Rather, Singh’s position regarding the Aug 8 meeting and the Oct 3 meeting was “quite clear” from the cross-examination questions by the defence to the prosecution witnesses, the prosecution argued. “Accordingly, it would appear that there is no need to amend the charges,” it added.

The prosecution further argued that it would be “unwieldy” to include all instances of Singh’s false evidence to the COP verbatim in the main text of the charges, pointing out that they spanned at least 15 pages for each charge.

The judge subsequently ruled that no amendments to both the charges would be necessary, as he was satisfied that the charges give Singh sufficient notice of what he is charged with.

The judge said he found no prejudice and unfairness in the charges handed to Singh. He added that the prosecution has “correctly pointed out” that Singh has not indicated that he does not understand the case he has to meet, or that he is in doubt or confused by the current charges or their respective annexures.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 9 (24 Oct 2024)

Prosecution wraps up case in Pritam Singh’s trial; hearing to resume on Nov 5

By Wong Pei Ting, Correspondent, The Straits Times, 24 Oct 2024

The prosecution on Oct 24 wrapped up its case in the trial of Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh, with the defence’s bid to impeach the credibility of key witness Raeesah Khan still undetermined.

Both sides will have to prepare written submissions before the trial resumes on Nov 5. The judge will then decide if Singh should take the stand.

The ninth day of proceedings saw the court dispense with calling police Deputy Assistant Commissioner (DAC) Roy Lim as a witness, as both prosecution and defence agreed on the facts he would have presented.

These are: Singh’s phone was seized by DAC Lim during the course of investigations, and the WP chief agreed to the police reviewing its contents in his presence. The police chose not to conduct forensic extraction of the phone’s contents after their review.

Singh, who is Leader of the Opposition, is fighting two charges over allegedly lying to a parliamentary committee that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament.

On Aug 3, 2021, Ms Khan told Parliament that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. The former Sengkang GRC MP repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

The defence will have to make its submissions by noon on Oct 30, to give the prosecution time to respond by Nov 1.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan said both lawyers’ submissions should address the words “clarify in Parliament”, which are in Singh’s first charge.

The first charge alleges that Singh lied to the Committee of Privileges (COP) when he said he wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament after a meeting on Aug 8, 2021, between himself, Ms Khan and WP leaders Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap.

On Oct 18, 2024, the judge said Singh did not use the phrase “clarify in Parliament” in his COP testimony, and asked if the court was meant to make this inference. Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock said yes, and that it was the only natural inference to make.

Judge Tan said on Oct 24 that he would leave the prosecution and defence to decide if they want to address the issue of whether Singh’s second charge can or should be amended.

This came after the defence said it will not be making submissions on this charge, which alleges that Singh provided false testimony when he said he had on Oct 3, 2021, asked Ms Khan to come clean about her lie if the issue was brought up in Parliament the next day.

The prosecution’s case

The prosecution opened its case on Oct 14 by alleging that Singh provided false testimony to the COP to downplay his own responsibility in Ms Khan’s controversy.

The four witnesses called to the stand over the past two weeks are part of its bid to prove its claim beyond reasonable doubt. They are: Ms Khan, former WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan, and former WP chief Low Thia Khiang.

During her four-day testimony, Ms Khan told the court that as a political newbie in 2020, she revered Singh and saw him as a mentor.

In recounting her Aug 8, 2021, meeting with the three WP leaders, Ms Khan said Singh first told her he should take her to the COP, but changed his mind and said “this is something we would all have to take to the grave”.

Singh next met Ms Khan on Oct 3 that year, where he allegedly told her the lie was unlikely to come up in Parliament the next day. If it did, he would not judge her for continuing to lie, Ms Khan said.

On Oct 4, after being asked about her lie in Parliament and doubling down, Ms Khan met Singh and Ms Lim and offered to tell the truth. Singh told her “it’s too late for that”, she said.

Ms Khan was also asked about her Nov 1, 2021, parliamentary statement in which she admitted her lie, but did not say she had told WP leaders about the lie in August. Ms Khan said she had wanted to protect them, and not implicate anybody else in her mistake.

Ms Loh, who left WP at the end of 2022, took the stand for two days. One question put to her was if she had asked Singh on Aug 10, 2021, whether the untruth would come up.

Ms Loh said her memory of that meeting between herself, Singh and Mr Nathan was “fuzzy”, but that she might have asked something to that effect as Singh had nodded, “affirming that it probably wouldn’t come up again”.

She also spoke of meeting the WP’s disciplinary panel on Nov 25, 2021, and telling Singh he should have clarified Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament in October.

She also said she told the panel it was not just Ms Khan’s responsibility to keep matters accountable and factual to Parliament, and that Singh had every opportunity to step up and clarify the lie.

Singh got “quite upset” by this remark, saying he had met Ms Khan on the night of Oct 3, 2021, Ms Loh recalled. But she cut him off before he completed his sentence, as she had many points to go through, she said.

Mr Nathan, whose testimony took three days, recounted a meeting on Oct 12, 2021, between himself, Singh, and Ms Loh. The WP chief said verbatim “I will not judge you” when referencing what he had told Ms Khan when he met her on Oct 3, Mr Nathan said.

Singh had also told Ms Khan that he had a feeling the untruth would come up in Parliament on Oct 4, but “that he would not judge her” whether she chose to come clean or maintain the lie, Mr Nathan said.

Mr Nathan, who left WP in 2022, was asked if Singh had specified when Ms Khan was supposed to decide whether to continue with the lie or tell the truth. Singh had not, he replied.

Mr Low, whose testimony on Oct 23, 2024, took less than 45 minutes, said he learnt of Ms Khan’s lie on Oct 11, 2021, when Singh and Ms Lim told him about it. He had told them that Ms Khan ought to apologise in Parliament, he said.

He also said he learnt only in August 2023 that the WP leaders had known about the lie since Aug 8, 2021, and that he had wondered why it had taken so long for the information to surface.

Asked if Singh or Ms Lim told him on Oct 11, 2021, that they had instructed Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament, Mr Low said no.

Mr Low was also asked if the leaders had told him about Singh going to Ms Khan’s house on Oct 3, 2021, to get her to clarify the untruth in Parliament the next day. Mr Low said he did not know that this meeting took place.

The defence’s case

The defence sought to poke holes in the accounts of Ms Khan, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan, making the case that they had aligned their evidence to the COP and police.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy painted Ms Khan as a habitual liar in his cross-examination, before mounting a bid to impeach her credibility as a witness.

He pointed out inconsistencies in Ms Khan’s statements to the police and the COP and evidence in court. If the impeachment bid is successful, Ms Khan’s evidence will be given less weight by the judge.

On one occasion, Mr Jumabhoy asked Ms Khan: “You are, in fact, a liar, correct?”

“Yes, I lied,” Ms Khan responded.

The lawyer also sought to show that Ms Khan had built upon her original lie, noting that she had managed to lie at least four times in a message to Singh. Ms Khan said she allowed her lies to snowball as she feared disappointing Singh.

The defence counsel also brought up Ms Khan having met Ms Loh, Mr Nathan and another party volunteer on Dec 1, 2021. This was to discuss their evidence before Ms Khan and Ms Loh testified to the COP on Dec 2.

Ms Loh later sent a message to their group chat: “Please don’t tell them we met before COP. This one really, really cannot say.”

Ms Khan, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan all disagreed when asked if they had met to align their testimonies.

Mr Jumabhoy also highlighted a text message redacted by both Ms Loh and Mr Nathan in a document submitted to the COP. They had said it contained a comment about an MP unrelated to the hearing, when it actually suggested that Ms Khan continue her lie about the purported sexual assault victim.

The message, sent by Mr Nathan on Oct 12, 2021, read: “In the first place, I think we should just not give too many details. At most apologise for not having the facts about her age accurate.”

When grilled on this, Ms Loh admitted to lying about the real reason for redacting the message, saying she had done so because it “does not look good” on Mr Nathan.

Mr Nathan rejected the suggestion that they had discussed what messages to include or redact in their submissions. Asked why he chose to redact the message, he said he thought the message was immaterial at that time.

Mr Low was asked only if he agrees that a lie on record in Parliament would have to be clarified in Parliament, to which he said yes.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 8 (23 Oct 2024)

Low Thia Khiang found out WP leaders had prior knowledge of Raeesah Khan’s lie in August 2023

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 24 Oct 2024

Former Workers’ Party (WP) chief Low Thia Khiang revealed in court that it was in August 2023 when he found out WP’s leaders had known about Ms Raeesah Khan’s untruth since Aug 8, 2021.

Asked how he reacted to this belated realisation, the 68-year-old party veteran told the court on Oct 23 that he wondered why the party leaders – his successor Pritam Singh, WP chair Sylvia Lim, and vice-chair Faisal Manap – had taken so long to reveal the matter.

Mr Low was testifying at the trial of Singh, who is contesting two charges over allegedly lying to a parliamentary committee that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan is the former Sengkang GRC MP who told Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Mr Low, who remains a member of WP’s central executive committee, told the court he met Singh and Ms Lim at his house on Oct 11, 2021, where they broke the news to him that Ms Khan had lied in Parliament.

He recounted that Ms Lim said she was considering holding a press conference for Ms Khan to apologise, and that they planned to expel her from the party.

Mr Low said he told them that just holding a press conference or issuing a statement would not work.

“Because Raeesah Khan lied in Parliament, the correct forum is Parliament, and she should apologise and clarify in Parliament,” he said of his advice.

The prosecution followed up by asking if Mr Low had asked Ms Lim who else had known about Ms Khan’s lie at that time.

Mr Low said he asked if the Government knew, and Ms Lim’s response then was that the Government did not know and that it was not easy for it to know, as there are many police stations in Singapore.

Asked what he said to Ms Lim in return, Mr Low remembered conveying it is “not the point whether or not the Government can find out” and his opinion that Ms Khan should apologise if she had told a lie.

Ms Lim appeared to be anxious during this conversation, Mr Low added.

He said he did not notice Singh’s demeanour during this conversation.

Mr Low also could not remember how Ms Lim and Singh responded to his advice for Ms Khan to apologise and make a clarification in Parliament.

They said they would talk to Ms Khan and ask her to apologise, he added.

Asked by the prosecution if Singh or Ms Lim informed him during the meeting that they had already told Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament, Mr Low said no.

He said he was not told about Ms Khan being sexually assaulted, or whether Singh and Ms Lim had told Ms Khan to speak to her parents about the sexual assault.

When Ms Khan admitted to her lie, she had said her untrue anecdote was in fact shared by a survivor in a women’s support group, which she attended as she had been sexually assaulted herself in the past.

Mr Low was also asked if Singh and Ms Lim had told him about Singh going to Ms Khan’s house on Oct 3, 2021, to get her to clarify the untruth in Parliament the next day.

Mr Low said no. He did not know that this meeting took place, he added.

As for his impression of when Singh and Ms Lim knew about Ms Khan’s lie based on their interactions on Oct 11, 2021, Mr Low said: “I don’t have any impression when they found out. They broke the news to me, so this is a problem and I participate in the discussion.”

When pressed on this, Mr Low said he did not have any impression as he didn’t follow Parliament closely.

Asked if Singh and Ms Lim had told him when they found out about Ms Khan’s lie, Mr Low said no. It also did not occur to him to find out, he added.

On whether there was any discussion on what the next steps would be, he said no.

The court heard Ms Lim met Mr Low again at his house on Oct 18 that year to convey that Ms Khan had agreed to apologise in Parliament.

He told her “we would want to look at her draft apology”, as he did not want the apology to end up with another lie.

The court later heard that Mr Low was not aware that Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal had known about Ms Khan’s untruth since August 2021 when he messaged Singh after her apology in Parliament to suggest convening a disciplinary panel (DP) within WP to look into the matter.

Mr Low said he had suggested that the panel should consist of Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal, as they are the party leaders.

That was how the DP comprising the three leaders, announced in a media statement by the party on Nov 2, 2021, came about.

This DP sat to hear representations from Ms Khan and other party members in November 2021, including ex-WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan’s grouses when it came to their attention that the leaders had wanted Ms Khan to resign from the party.

Asked if he had either read the report by the Committee of Privileges (COP) or followed the COP proceedings, Mr Low said he read the newspaper reports on them, but did not go into the details.

The defence only had one question for Mr Low during cross-examination – whether he agreed that a lie on record in Parliament would have to be clarified in Parliament.

To this, Mr Low said: “Yes, I think so.”

After both defence and prosecution indicated they had no further questions, Mr Low remarked “That’s all?” before leaving the stand.

In all, he took less than 45 minutes to give his testimony before a packed courtroom, including a 15-minute break.

Singh and Mr Low were spotted sharing a brief exchange at the court lobby after the hearing was adjourned. There, Mr Low wished Singh good luck after the WP chief apologised for not having many questions for him.

The hearing will resume at 11.30am on Oct 24, after Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan granted an application for Singh to attend his daughter’s graduation.

A police investigation officer is lined up as the prosecution’s next and final witness on this last day of the first tranche of hearings. The trial’s second tranche will start on Nov 5.

Judge disallows disclosure of ex-WP cadre’s unredacted messages: Key points on Day 8 of Pritam Singh’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Vanessa Paige Chelvan, The Straits Times, 24 Oct 2024

An application by Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh’s lawyer to get a full set of message logs by prosecution witness Yudhishthra Nathan was disallowed by the judge when the trial resumed on Oct 23.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan said he saw no basis in law for Mr Nathan’s unredacted messages to the Committee of Privileges (COP) to be disclosed to the defence. This is as the messages do not meet the requirements for disclosure under case law.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy had earlier in the week sought both the unredacted and redacted versions of Mr Nathan’s message logs to the COP, arguing that they went directly to whether the testimonies of Mr Nathan and his fellow WP cadre Loh Pei Ying, who both assisted former Sengkang WP MP Raeesah Khan in her duties as an MP, are credible.

The judge said that having carefully examined the documents, he was satisfied that none of the messages were relevant to Singh’s guilt or innocence. As the redactions were done for the purpose of the specific inquiry by the COP, the scope and basis of the redactions were also not relevant to the current criminal trial.

Judge Tan also noted that a list of unredacted messages by Mr Nathan, as well as the full list of redacted and unredacted messages by Ms Loh Pei Ying, has already been admitted as evidence for the trial.

While there is “no doubt” that Mr Nathan’s credibility – as with the credibility of all witnesses – is an issue, the messages that are already part of the trial’s evidence can and have been used to gauge this, he added.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to the COP, which was convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Former WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang took the stand in the afternoon, after the defence wrapped up its cross-examination of Mr Nathan. Here are the key points from Mr Nathan’s evidence on Oct 23:

1. WP cadres did not tell COP about ‘significant’ discussion with Singh

Mr Nathan was grilled about why neither he nor Ms Loh had told the COP what they subsequently told the police, which was that Singh had told them at an Oct 12, 2021, meeting that the WP was changing its strategy about Ms Khan’s untruth.

Mr Nathan had earlier testified that the WP chief had told him at that meeting that the party now wanted Ms Khan to come clean, as the Government might already have known that Ms Khan’s anecdote was untrue, and it would be “bad karma” to keep to the lie.

Mr Jumabhoy questioned why Mr Nathan did not mention this to the COP, given that the former WP cadre had agreed that this change in strategy was significant.

The defence lawyer noted that Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong had expressly asked him at the COP whether anything else of significance had happened at that Oct 12 meeting, and he had not mentioned this to the committee.

Mr Nathan replied that it was a very long meeting, and it was not something that crossed his mind when he was before the COP.

Mr Jumbahoy then put it to Mr Nathan that he did not mention this to the COP because this exchange with Singh did not happen, and that he had made it up. Mr Nathan disagreed.

2. Nathan and Loh discussed events between COP hearings and police investigation

Under cross-examination, Mr Nathan said he had met Ms Loh sometime between the COP hearings in late 2021 and the police investigations in early 2022 to discuss the matter, although he could not recall if they spoke about what took place at the Oct 12, 2021, meeting.

Asked if he and Ms Loh had tried to “jog each other’s memory”, Mr Nathan said they had conversations about what happened, but disagreed with the defence’s characterisation.

Asked if it was possible that they were describing to each other what should be included in their statements to the police, Mr Nathan, however, said: “No. I wouldn’t put it that way.”

He later agreed that part of these conversations was what they were telling the police, but he disagreed when Mr Jumabhoy said that he or Ms Loh had come up with “this little nugget about Pritam Singh admitting that there was a change in party strategy”.

Mr Nathan said he could not recall whether he had known if the police were investigating the matter when he spoke to Ms Loh.

This is as he could not remember whether they had spoken before or after Parliament debated the COP report on Feb 15, 2022. At that sitting, the House had voted to refer Singh to the public prosecutor for further investigation.

3. ‘Pritam Singh would try to use that information against him’

The court heard that Mr Nathan met Ms Loh for dinner on two occasions: once on Nov 29, 2021, and another on Dec 1, 2021, which Ms Khan joined. Mr Mike Lim, then Ms Khan’s legislative assistant, was also at both gatherings.

Asked if they discussed the upcoming COP hearings on these occasions, Mr Nathan said: “Possibly.”

Mr Nathan said Ms Khan was at that point somewhat afraid of facing the COP and telling the truth that the WP’s leaders had told her to maintain her lie since August 2021.

Mr Nathan recounted that while they were together on Dec 1, Mr Lim had stepped out for a phone call with Singh.

Before Mr Lim took the call, Ms Loh had told him to tell Singh that she had been called before the COP, and that she was not going to lie to save the party, recounted Mr Nathan.

Mr Nathan said he remembered this well, as Ms Loh had been quite emotional and was “trying to give (Singh) another opportunity to tell the public what really happened”.

Singh had replied that Ms Loh should go to the COP and tell the truth, a reaction that Mr Nathan said surprised him.

Mr Jumabhoy then referred to a Dec 22, 2021, message in their group chat, where Ms Loh had asked Mr Lim to be careful when he spoke with the WP chief. The message also said: “Please don’t tell him we met before the COP, okay? This one really cannot say.”

Mr Nathan had at this point added in the chat: “Just to protect yourself.”

Asked what his words meant, Mr Nathan said: “Just in case (Singh) would try to use that information against him.”

Mr Jumabhoy then put to Mr Nathan that he and Ms Loh had been aligning facts from the COP to make sure both their stories matched, and had checked with each other what messages to include and what to redact in their submissions to the committee. Mr Nathan and Ms Loh had also continued to lie together to the police, asserted the lawyer.

Mr Nathan disagreed with all these statements.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 7 (22 Oct 2024)

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 6 (21 Oct 2024)

Tense exchange between defence, prosecution over redacted messages in Pritam Singh trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Vanessa Paige Chelvan, The Straits Times, 22 Oct 2024

The trial hearing of Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh was adjourned on Oct 21 following a testy exchange between the prosecution and defence over whether redacted messages of former WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan were relevant to the proceedings and should be tendered in court.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy is seeking the unredacted version of Mr Nathan’s message logs from Oct 4 to Oct 12, 2021. He is also asking for the redacted version of these messages given to the Committee of Privileges (COP) and the reasons for these redactions.

Mr Jumabhoy said this is a reasonable line of inquiry as it goes directly to whether the testimonies of Mr Nathan and his fellow WP cadre Loh Pei Ying, who testified last week, are credible.

“I’m not here to challenge the findings of the COP… (but) these witnesses’ credibility is very much an issue,” he added.

Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock objected, arguing that the COP’s findings and the redacted messages are not relevant to the criminal trial at hand, and that Mr Jumabhoy is seeking to show that the witnesses hid evidence and “manipulated” the COP into making certain findings.

Addressing Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan, Mr Ang said the defence is “inviting Your Honour to go into the integrity of the COP process”. He added: “What will they do with (that)? They will use it for whatever purposes they want. That is the only finding that can come out of this exercise.”

After hearing both sides, the judge said he would review the message logs alongside evidence from Mr Nathan before making a decision.

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to the committee convened to investigate former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Singh is alleged to have lied to the committee that after a meeting on Aug 8 that year between him, Ms Khan and WP leaders Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap, he wanted Ms Khan to clarify in Parliament the untruth she had told days before on Aug 3.

The WP chief is also alleged to have provided false testimony that at a meeting with Ms Khan on Oct 3 that year, he had asked her to come clean about her lie if the issue was brought up in the House the next day.

The messages at the centre of the defence’s application were sent after Oct 4, 2021. During the exchange between the defence and the prosecution, Judge Tan acknowledged that they might relate to the testimonies of Mr Nathan and Ms Loh about their meeting with Singh on the night of Oct 12, 2021.

The court earlier heard that this Oct 12 meeting was when Singh told Ms Loh and Mr Nathan that he had met Ms Khan on Oct 3, 2021, and told her that he would not judge her.

In recounting what happened on Oct 12 that year, Mr Nathan told the court Singh said “verbatim ‘I will not judge you’”.

“The issue of their credibility, especially leading up to the 12th, even on the 12th, is an issue because it goes to whether their evidence is to be believed or not,” Judge Tan said.

However, the judge made it clear that he would not make any findings about the COP’s proceedings because they were not relevant to this trial.

Singh’s case will be heard again at 11am on Oct 22, with the judge due to make a decision on the defence’s application, and former WP secretary-general Low Thia Khiang lined up as the next witness to testify. Mr Jumabhoy said he would likely complete his cross-examination of Mr Nathan within an hour.

‘So relevant you decided to take it out’

Just before Mr Nathan had to leave the courtroom for the application to be made, he was cross-examined on his message to Ms Khan on Oct 12, 2021. In the message, he had suggested that she “not give too many details (and) at most apologise for not having the facts about her age accurate”.

Mr Nathan had redacted this message in the evidence he submitted to the COP in December 2021.

Asked why he chose to redact the message, Mr Nathan insisted that he thought the message was immaterial at that time.

It was his view that the COP was interested in the involvement of party leaders, he added.

When pressed on whether he redacted the message because of the reality that it shows him “in a bad light”, Mr Nathan said he partially agreed. However, he added: “I think if people understood my state of mind when I had sent that message then... they might have come to a different conclusion.”

Later, Mr Jumabhoy said the COP had specified that it needed to see “the trail” of messages. “You can’t just cherry-pick the messages, they want to see the whole trail,” he told Mr Nathan.

Mr Jumabhoy then put it to Mr Nathan that he knew “full well” that the message was relevant, posing to him: “It was so relevant that you decided to take it out.”

When Mr Nathan denied this, Mr Jumabhoy reiterated his case, stating: “If it was a completely irrelevant message, you won’t waste your time and effort to redact it, you would have overlooked it.”

The lawyer also said: “Clearly, you took it out because you thought it was highly relevant. And clearly you took it out because it makes you look bad.”

Mr Nathan disagreed with both statements.

He also disagreed that his motive for not disclosing the information was because he had wanted to mislead the COP.

Earlier in the day, Mr Jumabhoy wasted no time to paint Mr Nathan as the “man behind the scenes” or the one “pulling the strings” as soon as his cross-examination of the witness began.

Pointing out that the description was first used on Mr Nathan by Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, a member of the COP, Mr Jumabhoy said the term “man behind the scenes” suggested that he was “the one pulling the strings”, and asked if he agreed. Mr Nathan said “no”.

When probed by Mr Jumabhoy on what the lawyer described as a “seminal” moment, Mr Nathan said he could not recall the circumstances around the suggestion he had given Ms Khan about not providing too many details about the anecdote in her lie, and just clarifying the purported victim’s age.

Ex-WP cadre wanted Raeesah Khan to maintain the lie: Key points on Day 6 of Pritam Singh’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Christine Tan, The Straits Times, 22 Oct 2024

Former Workers’ Party (WP) cadre Yudhishthra Nathan was cross-examined on Oct 21, the sixth day of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s trial.

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate former Sengkang WP MP Raeesah Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Mr Nathan, now a PhD student at a local university, was a WP member from 2016 to 2022. He served in the party’s media team, policy team, youth wing and grassroots team in Sengkang, and assisted Ms Khan in her duties as an MP.

Here are the key points that came up as Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, cross-examined Mr Nathan:

1. Nathan wanted Khan to ‘actively maintain the lie’

The court heard that before attending a meeting with Singh and Ms Khan’s then secretarial assistant Loh Pei Ying at the WP chief’s house on Oct 12, 2021, Mr Nathan was concerned that the party leaders had not come up with a proper plan for Ms Khan to come clean about her lie.

Mr Nathan’s position at that time was therefore for her to “actively maintain the lie”, he testified.

When Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan asked what Mr Nathan envisaged Ms Khan doing in “actively maintaining the lie”, Mr Nathan said she “may go and clarify the age, but not come out and say she had lied about going to the police station”.

Mr Jumabhoy was questioning Mr Nathan about a WhatsApp message that he had sent earlier on the day of the meeting suggesting that Ms Khan should not give too many details about her anecdote and just clarify the age of the alleged sexual assault victim.

Mr Nathan told the court that he could not recall if he said this in relation to what Ms Khan should say in Parliament, or what she should tell the police, given that Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam had said by then that the police would be looking into the anecdote.

Asked if he was aware at this stage that Ms Khan would have to attend police investigations, Mr Nathan said “yes”. He added: “I was under the impression that party leaders (were) also not putting pressure on her to attend police investigations but I could be wrong about that.”

Mr Nathan testified last week that he was in a phone call with Ms Khan on the afternoon of Oct 12, 2021, when she told him that Singh and WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim wanted her to come clean, but were not sure if Ms Khan should mention the context that she was a sexual assault victim when she did so.

Mr Nathan had told the court that his response to her was that it “sounds like political suicide” to have an MP go to Parliament and admit she lied without explaining how she ended up lying in the first place.

Cross-examined on that point, Mr Nathan said his impression on Oct 12 was that the party’s plan was for Ms Khan to come clean but not mention the sexual assault.

He added that he was “pretty sure” he did not suggest to Singh that Ms Khan should maintain her lie.

This prompted Mr Jumabhoy to point out that Mr Nathan had “misspoken on two days now”, as he had previously testified that he could not recall if he had made such a suggestion to Singh.

“Now you are saying ‘I am sure that I didn’t’. What prompted that turnaround?” the lawyer asked.

After a long pause, Mr Nathan apologised to the court and noted that they had spoken about many things during the meeting. “I don’t recall having put this suggestion to Mr Singh,” he said.

“This feels like Who Wants To Be A Millionaire. Is that your final answer?” asked Mr Jumabhoy, drawing chuckles in the courtroom.

Mr Nathan said “yes”.

The defence counsel then grilled Mr Nathan on the possibility that Singh had responded to the suggestion to only mention the victim’s age by saying “don’t even think about covering this up with another lie”.

“Again, I’m going to ask you, are you saying that you could have forgotten saying this to Mr Singh?” the lawyer asked. To which Mr Nathan said: “I feel like I can’t really answer that because I just can’t remember that. I didn’t say that.”

Asked if it was possible he could have said something, he said: “I can’t remember.”

When prompted again, he said: “It’s also possible that I didn’t say it.”

Asked by Mr Jumabhoy if Singh responded to the suggestion to lie about the victim’s age by saying “don’t even think about covering this up with another lie”, Mr Nathan said he could not recall.

On further questioning, Mr Nathan later said all he recalled was asking Singh why the party was changing its position in relation to Ms Khan’s lie.

2. Nathan did not question Singh about Khan’s ‘take it to the grave’ message

Mr Nathan told the court he found out only during a Zoom call on Aug 7, 2021, that Ms Khan had lied.

They had discussed the anecdote on a number of occasions between Aug 3 and 7, with Ms Khan saying that she could not get the details of the sexual assault victim whom she had accompanied.

Mr Jumabhoy then asked Mr Nathan about their Aug 7 Zoom call, which fellow WP cadre Loh also attended.

Mr Nathan said he did not remember Ms Loh and himself giving Ms Khan much advice then, nor did he chastise her for having lied.

“Our approach then was to wait and see what the party leaders would do about this very serious (situation),” he added.

The defence lawyer then asked Mr Nathan for his reaction to an Aug 8, 2021, text message where Ms Khan wrote that the party leaders – Singh, Ms Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap – had agreed that “the best thing to do is to take the information to the grave”.

Mr Nathan said he was surprised, but “accepted it” after a while.

Asked why he did not respond to this message by Ms Khan then, he said he understood that the party leaders had taken a position.

Mr Nathan then told the court that Singh did not tell him what had to be done about Ms Khan’s lie when he and Ms Loh met the WP chief on Aug 10, 2021.

Asked why he did not question Singh on the leaders’ response about taking the information “to the grave”, Mr Nathan reiterated that he did not do so as he accepted it as the party’s position.

He added that he did not feel the need to further clarify the matter with Singh because he was the party leader.

“First of all, I trusted what (Ms Khan) had said in the message, and secondly, I think if Mr Singh wanted action to be taken, he probably would have conveyed that to Ms Loh and I at some point,” he added.

“On such a serious issue as this, (Singh) would be the one calling the shots,” he said.

Mr Jumabhoy carried on his questioning by noting that Mr Nathan had in 2019 publicly questioned Singh on the party’s position after the WP chief delivered a speech on LGBTQ issues at the National University of Singapore.

Mr Nathan had put up a social media post stating it was disingenuous for a politician to praise his LGBTQ friends for being upstanding citizens, only to refrain from standing up for their rights.

Mr Jumabhoy put it to him that he was “quite happy” to criticise Singh in a public post, and that he was “quite capable” of articulating his position when he disagreed with something that was done.

Mr Nathan said he made the “fair criticism” then because he felt it was “bad media strategy” on Singh’s part.

He added that he did not see a need to go public with his criticism all the time. “It’s a case-by-case basis kind of thing.”

Asked when was the last time he was aware of an MP lying in Parliament, Mr Nathan gave a slight smile and replied: “Possibly when Mr Singh had plagiarised a speech.”

Mr Jumabhoy then directed him to the point that Leader of the House Indranee Rajah made on Aug 3, 2021, after Ms Khan’s speech, about parties needing to be ready to substantiate their points when making serious allegations.

With this in mind, the lawyer asked why Mr Nathan chose to not say anything to Singh on Aug 10, 2021, despite being “quite capable” of challenging party positions and being surprised by Ms Khan’s message about taking her lie to the grave.

“But I’ve also taken Mr Singh’s direction on party issues and matters most of the time when I worked with him,” Mr Nathan replied.

Asked what he took Ms Khan’s message on Oct 4, 2021, that the police were going to investigate her anecdote to mean, Mr Nathan replied: “My impression was that she was to maintain the lie because that was the party position – no action taken, no steps to prepare for her to tell the truth.”

3. Defence claims Nathan was making things up

During questioning by the prosecution, Mr Nathan said he knew Ms Loh and Singh were discussing Ms Khan’s lie when he arrived late at the meeting on Aug 10, 2021, as he remembered the WP chief saying “something to the effect of conservative religious men in our society would not like to have an MP that was sexually assaulted”.

Mr Jumabhoy asked Mr Nathan to clarify if these were really Singh’s words, as they are “pretty offensive”.

Mr Nathan said both he and Ms Loh were seated in front of Singh when the WP chief said it “at a normal volume”, and there was “no doubt” that they both heard what he said.

Asked if he reacted then and called Singh out for giving such a “bigoted response”, Mr Nathan replied: “Frankly, it wasn’t surprising that Singh said that.”

“Was it not?” Mr Jumabhoy said in response.

“No,” Mr Nathan said.

Mr Jumabhoy then asked why Mr Nathan was recounting this anecdote in court three years after that Aug 10 meeting, when he did not mention it to the Committee of Privileges (COP) which sat four months after.

Mr Nathan said he believed he told the police about it in 2022. “By then I had more time to recollect, I suppose,” he added.

Mr Jumabhoy then put it to Mr Nathan that the anecdote was not in the evidence he presented to the COP because Singh did not say it. “You’re just making it up,” the lawyer contended.

“No,” Mr Nathan replied.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 5 (18 Oct 2024)

Pritam Singh’s ‘I will not judge you’ remark retold as third witness testifies at WP chief’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 19 Oct 2024

Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh had told two party cadres that he met former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan on Oct 3, 2021, and told her he would not judge her, regardless of whether she decided to continue her lie or tell the truth to Parliament.

This was the testimony of former WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan, who took the stand as the third witness on day five of Singh’s trial on Oct 18.

“He said verbatim ‘I will not judge you’,” said Mr Nathan, who was recounting to the court what transpired during a meeting that he and fellow cadre Loh Pei Ying had with Singh on Oct 12, 2021.

Singh is fighting two charges over allegedly lying to a parliamentary committee that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan lied to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

The court heard that when Singh met Mr Nathan and Ms Loh on the night of Oct 12, 2021, the Leader of the Opposition “did convey” that he had a feeling Ms Khan’s untruth would come up when Parliament sat on Oct 4.

So he paid a visit to her house the day before, on Oct 3, 2021.

That was where Singh “conveyed to Ms Khan that whether she decided to continue the lie or narrative, or whether she decided to tell the truth, that he would not judge her”, Mr Nathan told the court.

When Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivakumar Ramasamy asked about his reaction to what Singh said, Mr Nathan replied: “I did think that was rather indecisive of him. But I didn’t verbally express it. I didn’t see a need to at that point in time.”

Asked if Singh had specified when Ms Khan was supposed to decide between continuing the lie and telling the truth, Mr Nathan, who left WP in 2022, said the party chief had not.

Queried on his understanding of Singh’s remark that he would not judge Ms Khan, Mr Nathan said: “He was leaving it open to her that whichever option she chose, including the option to maintain the lie, that he would have no problem with that.”

Mr Nathan said he also asked Singh on Oct 12 if he had consulted former party chief Low Thia Khiang on the matter.

Singh replied that Mr Low’s view was that Ms Khan should come clean as soon as possible, he added.

Mr Nathan, who had been part of WP’s media team, told the court that he had met Ms Khan at least two or three times after Oct 12, 2021, over the personal statement that she was to deliver in Parliament to clarify her lie. It took about half a month to finalise the statement, he said.

Asked by the prosecution if the preparation could be done in one day, he said no.

The court earlier heard his take on Ms Khan’s Aug 8, 2021, text message to their group chat with Ms Loh, in which the former MP had said: “I told them what I told you guys and they agreed that the best thing to do is to take the info to the grave.”

Ms Khan had met Singh, WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap earlier that day.

Mr Nathan said he understood Ms Khan’s message to mean that the three party leaders were telling her to bury the truth about her anecdote and the fact that she had lied in Parliament.

His view of what Ms Khan said was that “as far as party leaders were concerned, this issue of her having lied in Parliament was essentially something the party didn’t need to address”.

He also testified that he wanted to present himself before the party’s disciplinary panel as it had become apparent to Ms Loh and him as early as Nov 13, 2021, that the exercise of having the panel was “more of a witch hunt”.

The court heard that on that day, Ms Khan had told Mr Nathan and Ms Loh via text that she thought Singh wanted her to resign from the party.

In response, Mr Nathan texted: “And he gets off scot-free? Cause right now people don’t know that he knew it was a lie when you told that to (Law and Home Affairs Minister K.) Shanmugam?”

In another text, he said Ms Khan could damage Singh’s reputation if she was asked by the Committee of Privileges (COP) what the party leaders knew, to which Ms Khan replied: “I wouldn’t do that.”

Asked what he understood by Ms Khan’s last message, he said he thought she was fearful of the prospect of telling the COP that the leaders were involved in her maintaining the lie from August onwards.

His sense was her fear had to do with the fact that she was a new MP, though he qualified that “I don’t think she was the only new MP who was a tad bit fearful of what the leaders thought of them”.

Mr Nathan also testified that when he and Ms Loh met the panel on Nov 25, 2021, they made known their reservations about the panel telling Ms Khan that she needed to get the support of her fellow MPs, because at least one of them was “pretty biased against her”.

This bias pretty much started since their interactions at the 2020 General Election, where Ms Khan ran as a first-time candidate, and carried on into their work as fellow MPs, he said.

Mr Nathan then said that having witnessed their interactions during the 2020 General Election, he knew Ms He Ting Ru was “never a fan” of Ms Khan and Associate Professor Jamus Lim.

“I’d say their work relationships also had ups and downs, and as time progressed, it became clear to me that (Ms He) continued to dislike Ms Khan – not saying the same for Jamus but certainly Ms Khan,” he added.

Nathan redacted a message he deemed ‘immaterial’

The prosecution also asked Mr Nathan why he chose to redact a message sent in the group chat with Ms Khan and Ms Loh on Oct 12, 2021, when submitting evidence to the COP.

He said he felt the message, which said “I think we should just not give too many details”, could be redacted as it was “immaterial to the COP investigation”.

Ms Loh had admitted lying about the real reason she redacted this same text message in court the day before.

Mr Nathan said he sent the message after Ms Khan told the second untruth on Oct 4, 2021, adding that by the end of Oct 12, Singh and the three of them in the group chat were “all on the same page that she should come clean”.

He added that although the COP had asked for content and messages up to November that year, his view was that the committee was interested in how the party leaders treated Ms Khan, kicked her out of the party, and Ms Khan’s state of mind while that was happening.

“I believe they were interested in that precisely because party leaders had been involved since August before she had spoken the second untruth. To me, this message that I’d sent on Oct 12 was immaterial to the COP investigation,” he said.

He added that he was told by “a couple of committee members” that it would be all right to redact irrelevant information and things of that nature in the submissions.

As for how the redaction was done, Mr Nathan said that after he gave his testimony to the COP, he was at some point asked to head down to the Parliament House library, where he sat next to COP member Rahayu Mahzam, who is from the ruling People’s Action Party, to do so in front of a computer screen.

He said they went through the messages that had been extracted from his phone one by one.

While going through the messages, they would talk about what could be redacted and what should stay, he said.

“I believe I was doing the redactions on the spot and I believe I had to provide a reason for why each message had to be redacted,” he added.

Mr Nathan recalled the Deputy Clerk of Parliament and one other Parliament staff member being present as well.

He said Ms Rahayu had to leave for constituency work at some point in the evening, while he stayed on till Parliament staff had to close the library.

They asked him to complete the rest of the redactions and send those by e-mail, he said, adding that he proceeded to do so in his car at the building’s carpark.

Asked if he was told to indicate a reason for redacting his message about not giving too many details, he said he must have indicated that it was not relevant to the COP’s investigations.

Asked if this particular message was approved by anyone, he said he could not remember. He added that there were hundreds of messages and he could not remember at which message Ms Rahayu had stopped being with him.

Mr Nathan’s cross-examination will begin on Oct 21.

Ex-WP cadre describes Raeesah Khan as ‘lao hong’: Key points from Day 5 of Pritam Singh’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 19 Oct 2024

The defence concluded its cross-examination of former Workers’ Party (WP) cadre Loh Pei Ying on Oct 18, the fifth day of the trial of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, and started hearing the prosecution lead evidence from another cadre, Mr Yudhishthra Nathan.

The court left off on Oct 17 after Ms Loh admitted to having lied about the reason for her redaction of a text message in a document submitted to the Committee of Privileges (COP).

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Raeesah Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are five key points that came up when Ms Loh and Mr Nathan, who both assisted Ms Khan with her duties as MP, testified:

1. Loh had ‘90%’ intention for Khan to tell the truth

When testifying before the COP in 2021, Ms Loh had said there was on Oct 12, 2021, a consensus among Singh, Mr Nathan and her to tell the truth.

Referring to text messages admitted to court for the trial, Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy sought to show that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan had wanted Ms Khan to continue lying.

One of the messages read to the court showed that on Oct 7, 2021 – when police sent an e-mail requesting to interview Ms Khan – Ms Loh had suggested that the ground they should probably take was to say Ms Khan was not in contact with the victim and hence could not reveal the information for confidentiality reasons.

“You might want to gather some cases of people who shared their stories with you and present that instead,” she also said in the text message.

The court also heard Mr Nathan’s position was that revealing the truth to Parliament and Singapore would be “extremely damaging”, thus he suggested that Ms Khan continue to lie by misdirecting the police query.

Upon questioning by Mr Jumabhoy, Ms Loh disagreed that the messages were a “clear” indication that she and Mr Nathan had intended for Ms Khan to continue lying.

When pressed, she said that before they had gone to see Singh on Oct 12, 2021, she was “90 per cent” intent on Ms Khan telling the truth.

“I had my reservations also because of the degree of consequences I knew the party would face. I wouldn’t say it was 100 per cent, but I was very close to it,” she added.

Mr Jumabhoy had asked her to ascribe a percentage to her intention.

He then asked if Singh had rejected Mr Nathan’s suggestion at the Oct 12 meeting by saying “Don’t even suggest covering this up with another lie”, which she confirmed.

He then argued that, at least when the meeting started, the only one who thought the truth should come out was Singh.

Ms Loh disagreed and said: “No. I thought it too.”

2. Loh thought Khan was naive, self-centred and ‘lao hong’

Ms Loh was later cross-examined on the points she presented on Nov 25, 2021, before the WP disciplinary panel (DP) convened to look into Ms Khan’s lying controversy.

Mr Jumabhoy then asked if she had told the DP that Ms Khan was “naive and stupid”, to which Ms Loh said she could not remember if she used those two terms, but she definitely said “naive”.

The panel comprised Singh, WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap, and Mr Jumabhoy was referring to Ms Lim’s notes for this meeting when questioning Ms Loh on this.

Pressed on the matter, Ms Loh said the points might have come up in the discussion, but since the words “naive” and “stupid” had come up in Ms Lim’s notes, she could have been describing Mr Nathan and her as “naive and stupid” as well.

Mr Jumabhoy then asked if she had also described Ms Khan as “self-centred” and “lao hong”, a Hokkien phrase. Did the dialect phrase mean that Ms Khan was weak and would crumble with criticism, he asked.

Ms Loh agreed that Ms Khan was sometimes self-centred, but said she would not use the word “weak” to refer to her. As for “lao hong”, she said she used the term because she felt Ms Khan was quite susceptible to criticism.

Asked what she understood by “lao hong” if it is not weak, she replied: “Would you call a lao hong biscuit a weak biscuit? That’s how lao hong is usually used. It’s just not a crispy biscuit.”

Mr Jumabhoy said he was told that in reference to biscuits, “lao hong” means that they are stale. “You are saying Ms Khan is stale,” he added.

Ms Loh disagreed with “stale” and said in Singapore, “lao hong” sometimes means “soft”.

By extension, it refers to someone who buckles “quite easily under pressure”.

“She’s susceptible to criticism. What people say online about her affects her mental health quite strongly. That’s what I meant,” she added.

Mr Jumabhoy said these opinions do not show a vote of confidence for Ms Khan, yet Ms Loh did not think Ms Khan should be expelled from the party.

Ms Loh said she was entitled to give her “honest, unfiltered candid opinion” at the DP, and that she had wanted Ms Khan to remain in the party so that WP could better control her narrative.

Otherwise, “there’s very little control the party will have over the narrative that will be put forth to the COP”, she said.

Mr Jumabhoy followed up by asking if Ms Loh was concerned that Singh would accuse Mr Nathan and her of conspiring with Ms Khan in creating the lie.

She said she was “extremely concerned” about that.

“To be more specific, I was extremely concerned on Nov 29, after Ms Khan phoned me in the afternoon and the party leaders strongly recommended that she resign,” she added.

The court also heard that after WP put out a statement announcing Ms Khan’s resignation on Nov 30, 2021, Ms Loh texted Mr Nathan a day later, saying: “I can’t believe our worst nightmare happened.”

Presenting Ms Loh with this message, Mr Jumabhoy asked if her worst nightmare was effectively that Ms Khan could say whatever she wanted to now.

He also asked if her concern was about what Ms Khan would say about Mr Nathan and her.

Ms Loh disagreed with both statements.

3. Loh deleted many messages after giving evidence to COP

Ms Loh had deleted many text messages after giving evidence before the COP, the court heard.

Mr Jumabhoy was asking her about her text correspondence with Mr Nathan on Dec 2, 2021 – the day she presented her evidence before the COP.

This prompted Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock to interject and ask why so much time was being spent on what happened between Ms Loh and Mr Nathan.

This case is not about whether the duo had given false evidence before the COP, Mr Ang said. He said the question at hand is the nature of certain conversations between Singh and Ms Khan specifically on Aug 8 and Oct 3 in 2021.

Mr Jumabhoy replied that the line of questioning was relevant as the witnesses appeared to have aligned their evidence.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan subsequently allowed the questions while urging Mr Jumabhoy to be clear about his questions.

The court then heard that Ms Loh had deleted messages on her phone after she finished giving her evidence before the COP.

“I deleted many things, including large groups with other volunteers,” she said.

The court also heard that she obtained permission from then Speaker of Parliament and COP chairman Tan Chuan-Jin to call Mr Nathan in between the Dec 2, 2021, hearing to give him a heads-up on the need for him to testify as well.

But the defence put it to her that, during the phone call, she had gone further than that, despite being informed that what she told the COP should not be discussed.

She agreed, recalling to have told Mr Nathan: “I said I can’t believe Pritam said those things to the press. You have to come here and tell the press.”

She said that she was “very emotional” and angry at that point, as COP member Don Wee, from the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP), had given her a wrong piece of information that made her think that Singh had lied.

The information was an article that erroneously stated that Singh knew of Ms Khan’s lie a week after Oct 3, 2021.

“I was concerned that (Singh), quite an influential man, had blatantly lied,” she added.

She said she knew Mr Nathan would be very terrified to be called to testify to the COP, “so I wanted to encourage him to come in and tell the truth, because it was scary, and I wanted to affirm to him that it was a need to be done”.

Another of the messages read in court was one that she sent to a chat group with Ms Khan and Mr Mike Lim, who served as Ms Khan’s legislative assistant from November 2020 to Dec 26, 2021.

In it, Ms Loh had said: “Please don’t tell them we met before COP. This one really, really cannot say.”

The court earlier heard that she, Ms Khan, Mr Nathan and Mr Lim had met on Dec 1 that year, just before they were supposed to give evidence.

Asked at this point if Ms Loh had wanted Ms Khan’s version to align with the testimony she was about to give, she said no.

She also disagreed that in her communications with Mr Nathan on Dec 2 that year, she had told him to tell her version of the truth.

4. Singh ‘afraid’ of Shanmugam, didn’t wish ‘bad karma’ on party: Nathan

One area of discussion during the Oct 12, 2021, meeting between Singh, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan was about the change in the party’s strategy, specifically what made them now want Ms Khan to come clean.

Mr Nathan, currently a PhD student at a local university, said Singh told him he was worried that the Government might already have evidence or would somehow know Ms Khan had lied in Parliament and that the anecdote was untrue.

“My sense at the time was that he was very afraid of (Law and Home Affairs) Minister K. Shanmugam and the Government,” he told the court.

Mr Nathan also remembered Singh saying that if the party were to keep the lie, it would get “bad karma” for it, he added.

Mr Nathan said he asked Singh then if he would be prepared media-wise – to field questions from journalists who would certainly ask whether he stood by Ms Khan and what she did in Parliament – and the WP chief had “kind of waved his hand” and called it a “simple matter”.

He also recalled informing Singh that this time round, it would not just be supporters of the PAP or those in the middle ground who would criticise the party, but also WP’s own members, volunteers and supporters, who had no idea that the leaders knew about Ms Khan’s lie.

At one point, he also asked Singh if he had consulted former WP chief Low Thia Khiang on his view of the matter.

Mr Nathan said he had asked as Mr Low was someone whose judgment he trusted very much, and someone he knew as being “very principled” and seasoned as a politician.

Singh responded that he had consulted Mr Low, and it was the elder’s view that Ms Khan should come clean as soon as possible, and that Ms Khan “still had time before the next GE” to shore up confidence from the ground.

5. Nathan thought WP’s reputation would take an ‘unrecoverable hit’

Between Oct 4 and Oct 12, 2021, Mr Nathan was still vacillating between whether Ms Khan should maintain her lie and stick to the “party position”, or whether she should come clean in some way, he told the court.

At that time, he had thought that the party position was that Ms Khan should maintain her lie as she had sent him a text message conveying the WP leaders’ wish for them to take the information “to the grave”.

Given that Mr Shanmugam had just raised questions around the anecdote at the Oct 4 Parliament sitting, Mr Nathan said he was afraid of what coming clean would mean for WP’s reputation and what others might think of them as loyal members of the party.

Asked to elaborate on his fear, he said he was afraid the reputation of WP “would take an unrecoverable hit” if Ms Khan were to come clean.

Later recounting the events on Oct 12, 2021, Mr Nathan said he was in school when he got into a phone call with Ms Khan late in the afternoon, where she told him that Singh and Ms Lim wanted her to come clean.

In that call, Ms Khan also mentioned that the party leaders were not sure if she should mention the context that she was a sexual assault victim when she came clean, he noted.

Mr Nathan told the court he remembered his response to her was that it “sounds like political suicide” to have an MP go to Parliament and say, ‘Hey everyone, I lied’, and not even explain how she ended up lying in the first place.

He also was made to recount the meeting he had with Ms Loh and Singh on Aug 10, 2021, where they reportedly discussed Ms Khan’s Aug 3 lie to Parliament, as well as her experience with sexual assault.

Asked how he knew they were discussing the lie, Mr Nathan said: “I do remember (Singh) saying something to the effect of conservative religious men in our society would not like to have an MP that was sexually assaulted.

“He said it in passing, but he said it nonetheless.”

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 4 (17 Oct 2024)

Ex-WP cadre Loh Pei Ying grilled by defence

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 18 Oct 2024

Former Workers’ Party (WP) cadre Loh Pei Ying had indicated in a document submitted to the Committee of Privileges (COP) that she redacted a text message because it contained a comment about an MP unrelated to the impending hearings.

But testifying on day four of WP chief Pritam Singh’s trial on Oct 17, Ms Loh admitted lying about the real reason for redacting the message, which was that it “does not look good” on fellow WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan.

The redacted message, which Mr Nathan sent on Oct 12, 2021, had suggested that they should continue the lie that former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan told in Parliament.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy read the message to the court. It said: “In the first place, I think we should just not give too many details. At most apologise for not having the facts about her age accurate.”

Ms Loh, who was Ms Khan’s secretarial assistant, gave evidence as the prosecution’s second witness in the trial where Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Ms Loh’s admission came on the afternoon of Oct 17, when she said she hid Mr Nathan’s comments.

Mr Jumabhoy sought to pin down the reason for Ms Loh’s lie, putting it to her that she had blacked out the message to preserve their credibility, knowing that it would cast a “bad impression” of Mr Nathan. By extension, it also “does not look great on your group”, Mr Jumabhoy posited.

To these suggestions, Ms Loh said: “I wasn’t trying to preserve the integrity, but I was worried that these documents would become public and I didn’t want him to be attacked for it.”

At this point, she mentioned that the redaction process was verified by a senior parliamentary staff member and COP member Rahayu Mahzam from the ruling People’s Action Party.

This set off a back-and-forth over how the redaction was done. Ms Loh said she would ask if she could redact something, and they would agree before doing so. She later also said that they had sat with her to identify the messages that would be needed for the COP.

She later said Mr Nathan had felt guilty to have suggested not giving too many details. He raised this suggestion when the two cadres met Singh on Oct 12, 2021, and the WP chief said it was not a good one, she noted.

Ms Loh said that when she was submitting evidence to the COP, she assessed that the message was not material to investigations and chose not to let it “come to light”, given how guilty Mr Nathan had felt about it.

“That would make him appear poorly because he did eventually change his mind, and it didn’t materialise. This wasn’t something that was acted on. And during police investigations, we came clean and told the police about this,” she told the court.

The court also heard that Ms Loh suggested gathering other victim stories to support Ms Khan’s false anecdote in a text message on Oct 7, 2021, three days after Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam pressed Ms Khan about her anecdote in Parliament.

Ms Loh said she was trying to help Ms Khan prove her point – that sexual assault victims suffer victim-blaming – by gathering other stories that fit the bill. This was a “grey area to operate”, and would allow Ms Khan to “avoid lying again but still address her original point in Parliament”, she said.

At one point during Ms Loh’s cross-examination, the judge interjected when Mr Jumabhoy tried to drill down on why she was giving a different answer to his question when she had given another answer before the COP.

The lawyer was asking her why her memory was “fuzzy” over whether Singh had told her on Aug 10, 2021, that the matter of Ms Khan’s untruth would not come up again, and what she asked him in relation to the issue.

“The question that was asked at the COP is not the same question you are asking now. Then how can you ask if there’s a different answer?” the judge said. “Your point seems to be asking why are you giving a different answer, but if you’re asking a different question, I don’t know what else you can expect.”

In her testimony to the prosecution, Ms Loh had told the court that she and Mr Nathan had learnt about the untruth during a Zoom call with Ms Khan on Aug 7, 2021.

She said that between Aug 10 and Oct 11, 2021, she did not receive any instructions from the party leaders on clarifying Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament.

The court heard that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan met Singh at the WP chief’s house on the night of Oct 12, 2021.

During this meeting, Singh shared that he had consulted former party chief Low Thia Khiang on the matter the day before, and that the WP veteran had thought the best course of action was to make a clarification in Parliament and “WP would survive the falling out that would follow”.

Singh also recounted that he had a feeling that Ms Khan’s matter would come up at the Oct 4, 2021, Parliament sitting, so he had gone to speak to Ms Khan the day before to “sort of give her a choice of whether or not to come clean in Parliament and that he would not judge her”, Ms Loh recalled.

She told the court that Singh’s recount had surprised her. “I was first surprised that he had the foresight that the matter would come up and also that he would say such a thing to her,” she said. “It felt like very unclear communication, it was vague instruction.”

They later discussed what to include in Ms Khan’s statement to tell the truth, and whether it should include the fact that she is a survivor of sexual assault. Asked by the prosecution if Singh had said he already asked Ms Khan to inform her parents about the sexual assault or had been waiting for her to do so, Ms Loh said no.

Ms Loh also testified that as a media person herself, she knew there was “no way” Ms Khan could have told the truth in Parliament by herself on Oct 4, 2021, without making any preparation.

“This lie is obviously going to be a shock to everyone. If she were to come up and just say ‘Yeah, I lied about it’, it would be very, very foolish of her to just go up and do that without the party,” she said.

For a matter of this magnitude, where the “fallout would be severe to a very high degree”, it was “unthinkable” that she would go into it alone, without the party’s central executive committee knowing and the party managing the crisis communications required, Ms Loh said.

She also told the court that she and Mr Nathan attended a hearing on Nov 25, 2021, by a WP disciplinary panel that comprised Singh, party chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap.

She recounted that she told Singh he should have stepped up to clarify Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament in October 2021 if he – the Leader of the Opposition – was of the view that it should have been done.

It was not just Ms Khan’s responsibility to keep matters accountable and factual to Parliament, she said.

Ms Loh’s cross-examination continues on Oct 18.

Low Thia Khiang advised that ‘WP would survive the fallout’: Key points from day 4 of Pritam Singh’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 18 Oct 2024

Former Workers’ Party (WP) cadre Loh Pei Ying was the second witness to take the stand in the trial of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, after the prosecution wrapped up former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan’s re-examination within half an hour on the morning of Oct 17.

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are the key points that came up on Oct 17, as the trial court sat for the fourth day:

1. Loh views Khan’s lie as a ‘big deal’ and ‘stain on WP’s history’

When Ms Loh took the stand, the court heard that she was a core member of WP’s media team in the 2020 General Election, where Ms Khan was elected as a first-time MP.

By then, Ms Loh, the head and co-founder of editorial company Kontinentalist, had been with WP for almost 10 years. She became Ms Khan’s secretarial assistant and helped the political newbie, who had started volunteering with WP only from the start of 2020, catch up with WP’s history, among other duties, the court heard.

On Aug 7, 2021, Ms Khan confessed over a Zoom video conferencing call to Ms Loh and WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan that she had lied when Parliament sat on Aug 3.

Ms Loh, who left WP at the end of 2022, sought to clarify the facts during the call, as Ms Khan was emotional and “wasn’t very coherent”.

They also discussed political history, Ms Loh said, noting that Ms Khan, then 27, “had generally quite a poor understanding” of WP’s history.

For instance, Ms Khan did not know former Hougang WP MP Yaw Shin Leong was expelled from the party in 2012 over allegations that he had an extramarital affair with a married woman.

“She did not know that whole thing happened,” Ms Loh told the court.

When she found out about Ms Khan’s untruth on Aug 7, 2021, Ms Loh regarded the matter as a “big deal” and “stain” on WP’s track record for an MP to have lied in that manner. She thus felt uncomfortable to have been made aware of it.

But after she heard from Ms Khan then that Singh had been clued in on the lie earlier on Aug 7, Ms Loh said she felt “a little relieved”, as the WP chief “would know what to do” if something was to be done about it.

2. Low Thia Khiang’s advice was to clarify the lie, and WP would survive the fallout: Loh

The court heard that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan met Singh at the WP chief’s house on the night of Oct 12, 2021.

Ms Loh said that at this “very lengthy” meeting, which took place after dinner, Singh shared that he had consulted former WP chief Low Thia Khiang on the matter the day before, and that the WP veteran had thought the best course of action was to make a clarification in Parliament and “WP would survive the falling out that would follow”.

She and Mr Nathan were “very assuaged” upon hearing that this was Mr Low’s decision and advice, as they had a lot of faith and confidence in the elder’s opinion, Ms Loh told the court.

During the meeting, Singh also recounted that he had a feeling that Ms Khan’s matter would come up at the Oct 4, 2021, Parliament sitting, so he had gone to speak to Ms Khan the day before to “sort of give her a choice of whether or not to come clean in Parliament and that he would not judge her”, Ms Loh recalled.

Asked what she understood by “would not judge her”, Ms Loh said she thought it meant that he would not have a “poor opinion of her regardless of what she did” – specifically whether or not Ms Khan was going to confess or stay silent about her lie in Parliament.

She told the court that Singh’s recount had surprised her. “I was first surprised that he had the foresight that the matter would come up and also that he would say such a thing to her,” she said. “It felt like very unclear communication, it was vague instruction.”

Ms Loh also told the court that the meeting covered how Ms Khan’s Nov 1, 2021, statement before Parliament should be drafted as well.

This was where Ms Loh opined that it was “no good for the party” if the statement omitted the fact that Ms Khan was a sexual assault victim herself, given that this was how she had learnt of the original anecdote referenced in her lie to Parliament.

Singh had considered excluding the fact, she noted. Asked by the prosecution if Singh explained why, Ms Loh said he had said Ms Khan need not include the fact if that was difficult for her to share – what was important was to address that she had lied in Parliament, and he was of the view that a brief statement would be sufficient.

Ms Loh said she felt WP would risk coming across as a party of “compulsive liars” if the motivation behind why Ms Khan had lied was left unaddressed.

Her primary concern would be how sexual assault victims would be perceived after Ms Khan’s confession, since they could be made a “laughing stock, or cast upon as liars”, she added.

Ms Loh also testified that as a media person herself, she knew there was “no way” Ms Khan could have told the truth in Parliament by herself on Oct 4, 2021, without making any preparation.

“This lie is obviously going to be a shock to everyone. If she were to come up and just say ‘Yeah, I lied about it’, it would be very, very foolish of her to just go up and do that without the party,” she said.

For a matter of this magnitude, where the “fallout would be severe to a very high degree”, it was “unthinkable” that she would go into it alone, without the party’s central executive committee knowing and the party managing the crisis communications required.

3. WP disciplinary panel was ‘performatory’ to Loh

The court also heard Ms Loh was “extremely angry” when she received a message on Nov 10, 2021, that a disciplinary panel (DP) convened to look into Ms Khan’s lying controversy was inviting WP members to share their views on the episode.

The panel comprised Singh, party chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap.

Ms Loh then sent a message to Singh, which read: “Hi Pritam, I’ve tried to reserve my comments on the DP so far but I just saw the message that was sent out to everyone.”

She followed with a text that said it was “plain as day” to her that people involved in Ms Khan’s apology on Nov 1, 2021, were now doing “a little backwards pedalling”.

In another part of the message, which was read out in court, she wrote that the party clearly did not anticipate the backlash despite warnings, and was now trying to do something to quell the anger – an action that she disagreed with.

Ms Loh said she wrote this as she had viewed the DP as “performatory”, done to quell the anger of party members and the public on the matter, but that it would not lead to “drastic actions” being taken against Ms Khan.

The court also heard that she told the WP chief then that she did not think it was “at all fair” to let party members think they had a say in the DP process if this was “done as a mock consultation exercise”. She also urged that the DP be “transparent and share their involvement”.

Giving the context to why she reacted that way, she said “I thought it was dangerous” because everyone else “did not have the full facts” that Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal knew that Ms Khan had lied as early as Aug 8, 2021.

She also noted that the DP was set up amid a groundswell of sentiments that Ms Khan should resign. “Overwhelmingly, people wanted her to resign, and they were eager to distance themselves from (Ms Khan’s) mistake and her lie,” she said.

The court then heard that Singh’s response to her was that party members needed to be given a platform to have their say on the matter rather than “commiserate privately”, to which Ms Loh responded: “I get that, but the DP hasn’t exactly told the party of its knowledge and involvement.”

Ms Loh also followed up by texting: “Their opinions are not accurate because they don’t have the facts.

“Everyone is of the view that we can cut her loose and distance the party from her mistake, but if she is out of the party and she is still subjected to COP (Committee of Privileges), there’s not much we can do about what she says and does there.”

Ms Loh told the court that she said this as her sense was that if party members had known that the leaders were involved, they would take a “significantly different opinion” of the matter.

4. Loh told Singh he should have stepped up and clarified Khan’s lie in October

Ms Loh recounted that she told Singh during a DP hearing on Nov 25, 2021, that he should have stepped up to clarify Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament in October 2021 if he was of the view that it should have been done.

He is Leader of the Opposition, and it was not just Ms Khan’s responsibility to keep matters accountable and factual to Parliament, she said.

She also told the panel that, given Singh knew that a lie had been told, he also had every opportunity to step up and clarify.

Singh got “quite upset” by this remark, pointed at her with a pen and said he had gone to Ms Khan on the night of Oct 3, Ms Loh recalled.

However, before Singh could complete his sentence, Ms Loh said she cut him off, as she still had many points to go through.

Before the panel, Ms Loh also referenced the fact that Singh had similarly made a severe mistake in Parliament before, where he plagiarised his speech about an ombudsman, she added.

The court also heard that Ms Loh had initiated the meeting with the DP, as she realised from a text exchange with Singh that he would not be inviting her and Mr Nathan for questions before the DP – an action that made her feel “intentionally not consulted”.

The meeting was thus to ensure that their thoughts on the matter were put on record, including that they had knowledge of “the true facts”, she told the court.

During the session with the DP, Ms Loh said sacking Ms Khan from the party or having her resign would be a “very severe punishment for something like this”.

She said it would also set a “problematic unprecedented record for the party”, suggesting that resignation would be the only solution if anyone made a mistake.

She added that she told the panel it was “extremely irresponsible” to leave Ms Khan’s minority seat in Compassvale unrepresented and expect the other three MPs to step in.

“Compassvale will never get the proper representation they deserve,” she said. “I also did not think it was up to the MPs – the three of them – to make that call; there is a democratic process to this,” she added.

“It was Raeesah Khan who has been voted into Parliament. To me, it felt convenient that they were using – and I said this to them – they were using precedent set by Halimah Yacob of leaving a minority seat unrepresented, despite WP’s very clear stance against the GRC system, that they just wanted Raeesah Khan out without doing the right thing.”

She said she told the panel that the right thing to do was to also ask the other MPs to step down, allowing Sengkang residents the opportunity to vote again.

5. Khan: ‘You wouldn’t confront your bosses with their own mistake’

When being cross-examined on Oct 16 by Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, Ms Khan had cited “power dynamics” as the reason why she did not mention the WP leaders’ earlier advice for them to take her lie to the grave when she gave her account before the DP on Nov 29, 2021.

Asked by the prosecution on Oct 17 to elaborate on the power imbalance she had referred to, Ms Khan said: “It’s like a conversation with your bosses. You don’t, you wouldn’t confront your bosses with their own mistake.”

Ms Khan spoke about this dynamic again when the prosecution asked her to elaborate on why she had not told Singh or Ms Lim during their meeting on the night of Oct 4, 2021, after she repeated her lie in Parliament, that she got into the mess only because of what they had told her to do.

Earlier, Mr Jumabhoy questioned her about the lack of such a reaction, and she said she never spoke to Singh and Ms Lim in such a manner.

On Oct 17, Ms Khan said: “I never spoke to them in a confrontational way; we didn’t have that kind of relationship. It was more of a ‘This is our advice and you just kind of accept it, and you move on’.”

Again on why she never considered mentioning her leaders’ guidance in any of her draft statements prepared for the Nov 1, 2021, Parliament sitting, where she ultimately admitted to having lied, Ms Khan reiterated that she wanted to protect her leaders.

“I wanted to take the full consequences of my action. I wanted to take full responsibility of what I had done,” she added.

6. Singh was ‘composed and relaxed’ during Aug 10, 2021, meeting

When the prosecution was leading her evidence, Ms Loh said she and Singh had “avoided saying things out loud” when they met on Aug 10, 2021, at the Aljunied-Hougang Town Council office in Eunos, where she said they shared a mutual understanding that Ms Khan had told a lie in Parliament.

Noting that Singh had requested the meeting to discuss a code of conduct for WP members and volunteers, she told the court she asked about his knowledge of Ms Khan “with an understanding that she had lied”, although they explicitly referenced the fact that Ms Khan was a victim of sexual assault.

“He sort of confirmed that he understood what I was referencing and I talked about sexual assault survivors’ experiences,” she recalled.

Asked about the manner in which they communicated, Ms Loh said there was then a “prevalent belief” among Mr Nathan, Ms Khan and her that their phones may be bugged as she had received a text from Apple saying that “state forces” were trying to access her phone.

Singh, she noted, was also “generally worried about this”, so she had had to hand over her phone for safe keeping in a drawer behind him when they met.

Deputy Public Prosecutor Ben Mathias Tan asked how Singh had “sort of confirmed” his understanding of Ms Khan’s lie at this meeting, and Ms Loh said: “I asked him, has (Ms Khan) told you about the matter, and he nodded his head.”

Queried if she had asked Singh about whether the untruth would come up at that time, she said her memory is “fuzzy” on this, but recalled that she might have asked something to that effect since he had nodded his head, “affirming that it probably wouldn’t come up again”.

But she specifically remembered that Singh did not seem angry about Ms Khan’s lie during this meeting as he was “composed and relaxed”.

On why she did not respond to Ms Khan’s Aug 8, 2021, text mentioning Singh’s advice to take her lie “to the grave”, she said they had avoided discussing the lie over text messages as there was a general awareness that the lie was “severe”.

Upon further questioning by Mr Jumabhoy about this, she said she did not “fully register” the message until much later, on Nov 29, 2021, after receiving an invocation to appear before the COP.

She “had a visceral response” when she finally registered it, she added.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 3 (16 Oct 2024)

Pritam’s lawyer continues to raise doubts over Raeesah’s credibility on day 3 of WP chief’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 16 Oct 2024

Whether former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan’s evidence could be relied upon continued to be the subject of cross-examination on Oct 16, the third day of Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh’s trial.

Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, sought to take the court through inconsistencies in Ms Khan’s statements to the police and the Committee of Privileges, and the evidence she had given since the trial began on Oct 14.

This was as the defence had, on Oct 15, applied to impeach Ms Khan’s credibility as a witness.

If successful, what Ms Khan says in court would be given less weight by the judge.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

In the morning, Mr Jumabhoy showed that Ms Khan’s statement to the police on May 12, 2022, was that Singh told her on Oct 3, 2021, that “knowing them (the Government), they may bring it up again”, and if her untrue anecdote was brought up in Parliament on Oct 4, he would not judge her if she kept to her lie.

However, Ms Khan said on the first day of the trial that Singh had told her on Oct 3 that he did not think the issue would come up again, but that if it did, he would not judge her for continuing with her narrative.

Asked if there was a difference between her two accounts, Ms Khan at first said they were different ways of saying the same thing, but later agreed that there was a difference.

Mr Jumabhoy then pointed to an Oct 1, 2021, e-mail that Singh had sent to all current WP MPs reminding them of the serious consequences they would face if they could not back up what they said in Parliament.

The lawyer noted that Singh had mentioned this e-mail to Ms Khan when they met on Oct 3. Her testimony that he then told her he would not judge her if she continued her narrative could not be true.

“Would you agree that that’s simply absurd? It’s so absurd that, in fact, it didn’t happen (and) he never told you to continue the narrative,” said Mr Jumabhoy.

Ms Khan disagreed. Asked why she did not question Singh on what appeared to be two contradicting messages, she said the WP chief had told her he would not judge her if she kept up her narrative, and she had left it at that.

The defence made a separate impeachment application based on Ms Khan’s Oct 4 text to Singh. When Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam raised the matter of her untrue anecdote in Parliament, she had texted the WP chief: “What should I do pritam”.

Mr Jumabhoy argued that the message was “materially contradictory” to her evidence in court.

This is because Ms Khan told the court she had lied again in Parliament on Oct 4 as she had Singh’s support to do so, while in her written statement, she said it was because Singh did not reply to her message and she was waiting for guidance.

“There can’t be a more bare-faced contradiction to what she’s saying there,” the lawyer told the court.

But Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock said the message aligned with the gist of her evidence, which was to continue her narrative. When confronted by Mr Shanmugam in Parliament, Ms Khan had sought Singh’s assurance that he held to the same position from their meeting the day before, he added.

It was “completely inappropriate” for the defence to rely on just a particular sentence to look at whether Ms Khan’s credibility should be impeached, said the prosecutor.

Citing case law, he noted that the bar for impeachment is high.

“Impeachment is a process which is not lightly gone into. The court must be satisfied that there is a serious or material discrepancy,” he said.

On this point, Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan ruled that he did not see a contradiction in Ms Khan’s statements, let alone a material contradiction.

He agreed with Mr Ang that Ms Khan’s court testimony cannot be read in isolation.

In the afternoon, the defence argued that Ms Khan had contradicted herself about whether she had intended to come clean in September 2021, and as such there were grounds for impeachment.

Mr Jumabhoy noted that evidence provided to the Committee of Privileges showed that Ms Khan had said she “might have” considered telling the truth then, but did not attend Parliament that month as she was down with shingles.

This piece of evidence was from Ms Khan’s statement to the police. The lawyer had tried to get a related portion of the police statement admitted in court as part of his bid to impeach Ms Khan’s credibility.

He said her answers appeared to contradict his earlier exchange with Ms Khan in court.

He had asked if she had contemplated coming clean in September 2021, and she replied no. This was because she thought the matter had been dropped.

“There’s no suggestion that she’s not coming clean because she was asked to take the matter to the grave or asked to continue the narrative,” he argued.

Mr Jumabhoy was referring to Ms Khan’s evidence that the WP leaders had told her to take the matter to the grave on Aug 8, 2021, and Singh telling her on Oct 3 that he would not judge her if she continued her narrative.

However, the prosecution pointed out that as a general rule, when statements are reduced to question and answer form, if something is lost in the process, it cannot be considered a discrepancy.

“An omission is hardly a discrepancy. Just because you omit to say that there is another reason, that is not a discrepancy,” said Mr Ang.

He noted that witnesses can be cross-examined further on an inconsistency only if there are serious discrepancies or material contradictions which go to the crux of the charges. There was no material discrepancy here, he added.

The judge rejected the defence’s application. He said he failed to see a contradiction as the questions asked of Ms Khan were not the same.

Mr Jumabhoy wrapped up his cross-examination of Ms Khan by putting to her the defence’s position. He said that at their meeting on Aug 8, 2021, Singh had told her to speak to her parents, and that they would deal with her untruth thereafter. The WP leaders never told her at that meeting to take her lie to the grave, he added.

Ms Khan disagreed.

The prosecution is expected to wrap up its re-examination of Ms Khan on Oct 17. Ms Loh Pei Ying, a former WP cadre, is the next witness to take the stand.

‘You’re not a teenager’: 5 key points as defence wraps up Raeesah Khan’s testimony at WP chief’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 16 Oct 2024

The defence completed its cross-examination of former Workers’ Party (WP) MP Raeesah Khan on Oct 16, having sought to put into doubt the credibility of the prosecution’s key witness.

Ms Khan, the first witness in the trial of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, was grilled on what the defence said were multiple inconsistencies in her testimony.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are five key points that came up on Oct 16:

1. ‘You didn’t need a directive to lie’

Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy pointed to Ms Khan’s statement on Dec 22, 2021, to the Committee of Privileges (COP), where she said Singh did not give her a “directive” to clarify the untruth.

The lawyer noted that she was 27 years old at that time and “not a teenager” when she was expecting this directive, and that she did not seem to need a directive to lie to Parliament. Yet, she needed a directive to tell the truth, he added.

Ms Khan said it was because she wanted Singh’s advice, given that she had made a mistake, as her party leaders were far more experienced in politics than she was.

“Naturally when I’ve done something wrong, I’ve gone to my leaders and I’ve asked them what I should do because I’m terrified that I’ve made this mistake,” she added.

Mr Jumabhoy put it to her that the WP’s leaders never told her in a meeting days after her untruth to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, that they should take the lie to the grave. Ms Khan disagreed.

The lawyer also said Ms Khan had stuck to her lie in Parliament on Oct 4 as she was frightened that telling the truth would expose her as a liar.

Ms Khan said this was partly the reason, but she had also relied on Singh’s advice a day earlier that he would not judge her if she continued her narrative.

2. Why no anger at ‘bad advice’ from WP leaders

The defence said Ms Khan should have been angry with the WP leadership if they had advised her to maintain her untruth in Parliament on Oct 4, since it became clear then that the police intended to seriously investigate her allegation.

“Wouldn’t you naturally have been fuming, angry, with the party leadership?” asked Mr Jumabhoy.

Ms Khan said she only remembered feeling “really terrified”, and just trusting what her party leaders wanted her to do.

The lawyer then noted that on the evening of Oct 4, Ms Khan had met Singh and WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim at the Leader of the Opposition’s office in the House, and again did not express any unhappiness, which would have been the natural response if she had relied on what in retrospect was bad advice.

This is because Singh never told her to lie in the first place, said Mr Jumabhoy. The WP chief also did not ask her to lie again on Oct 4, and that it was Ms Khan’s own decision to do so.

Ms Khan disagreed.

The defence also noted that Ms Khan had told then WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan that Singh and Ms Lim had been “really great” a day later on Oct 5, the same people who she claimed had told her to lie.

Ms Khan said she was referring to how they had taken the time to give her advice, and what she “saw as compassion from them at that time”.

3. ‘Power dynamics’ the reason why Ms Khan did not mention WP leaders’ advice at party’s disciplinary panel

The defence noted that Ms Khan had asked for a second meeting with WP’s disciplinary panel – consisting of Singh, Ms Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap – which took place on Nov 29, 2021.

Prior to the meeting, she had a text exchange with Singh which Ms Khan said shocked her, as it felt like the WP chief was trying to make it seem as if he had not been advising her all along on her untruth.

Mr Jumabhoy noted that, despite this, Ms Khan did not mention to the disciplinary panel that it had been their instruction for her to maintain her lie.

She responded that context was missing – it was her facing three “very powerful people” who had been advising her, and who now pretended they had not.

“When you are confronted by people you view as giants, it’s very hard to confront them in a negative way,” she said.

4. WP cadres advised Raeesah Khan to ‘lawyer up’

The court heard that after Ms Khan’s exchange with Minister for Law and Home Affairs K. Shanmugam on Oct 4, 2021, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan had advised Ms Khan to get legal advice.

Ms Loh and Mr Nathan had both assisted Ms Khan in her duties when she was an MP, including giving input on her parliamentary speeches.

In a newly set up chat group, Ms Loh suggested that Ms Khan “lawyer up”, while Mr Nathan advised her to be careful about what she told the lawyer.

Mr Jumabhoy asked if the two WP cadres were aware of the fact that she had lied to Parliament twice by then, and Ms Khan said “yes”. He asked if they had told her to own up to her lies, and she said they did not.

The lawyer then asked if Ms Loh’s advice was “effectively trying to block an investigation”, and if Mr Nathan was advising her against telling the lawyer everything. Ms Khan disagreed, and said they were suggesting that she get legal advice and be careful.

5. Ms Khan met the WP cadres to discuss their evidence before COP hearing

The court also heard that Ms Khan met Ms Loh, Mr Nathan and another WP volunteer, Mr Lim Hang Ling, on the night of Dec 1, 2021. Ms Khan and Ms Loh gave evidence to the Committee of Privileges on Dec 2.

Mr Jumabhoy asked if Ms Khan had contacted Ms Loh to meet in order to “come up with a story by aligning your facts”. Ms Khan denied this, and said they had met to make sure that both of them were doing okay.

Asked if she had discussed what she wanted to say in her evidence, Ms Khan said: “Not that much.” She later conceded that she had discussed the evidence she wanted to give to the Committee of Privileges.

Ms Khan said that at that point, she still wanted to protect Singh as much as she could, but Ms Loh had rightly pointed out that they had to be honest if the committee asked specific questions about when the WP leaders knew about her untruth. “I wasn’t intending to lie, I was just hoping to take full responsibility at the (Committee of Privileges),” she said.

Mr Jumabhoy asked Ms Khan whether it would have been a lie had she done so, and she agreed.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 2 (15 Oct 2024)

Pritam Singh’s lawyer paints Raeesah Khan as habitual liar in bid to impeach witness’ credit

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 16 Oct 2024

Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy, who is representing Workers’ Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, sought to paint former WP MP Raeesah Khan as a habitual liar from the moment her cross-examination began on Oct 15.

After more apparent inconsistencies were put to Ms Khan, it became clear that this was part of the defence’s bid to impeach Ms Khan’s credit as a witness.

Such impeachment can happen if a witness gives testimony that is inconsistent with his or her former statements, according to the Evidence Act.

The attempt sparked a 30-minute debate on the second day of Singh’s trial around whether there was really a discrepancy in Ms Khan’s testimony.

Mr Jumabhoy, a former prosecutor, argued that Ms Khan’s statement to the police should be allowed as evidence for purposes of this impeachment process.

Ms Khan had to step out of the courtroom while these arguments were made, but the court was adjourned for the day before the matter was resolved.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan is expected to continue to hear the defence’s argument for impeachment on Oct 16, when Singh’s trial resumes.

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to the committee convened to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

If convicted, Singh could be fined up to $7,000, jailed for up to three years, or both, on each charge.

Lies upon lies

The defence’s three-hour cross-examination was littered with charged moments.

On one occasion, Mr Jumabhoy confronted Ms Khan with the question: “You are, in fact, a liar, correct? You tell lies non-stop, don’t you?”

“Yes, I lied,” Ms Khan said in response to the first question. She also asked what Mr Jumabhoy meant by “non-stop”.

In another instance, Mr Jumabhoy sought to show that Ms Khan had built upon her original lie with more lies, noting that she had managed to lie at least four times in a message to Singh. “That’s pretty impressive by any stretch of the imagination,” the lawyer said.

The message in question was Ms Khan’s response to Singh when he asked, soon after she delivered her untrue anecdote in Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, if she was still in contact with the woman mentioned.

Ms Khan had told Singh then that the incident took place three years earlier in the early part of the year, and that she had met the victim at a bus stop near Bedok police station.

In response to Mr Jumabhoy’s statement, Ms Khan said: “I wouldn’t call it impressive, I would call it fear”. He then remarked that she is “seen to be well-thinking enough” to add facts to support her accounts.

Ms Khan then said: “I would think being well-thinking would be coming out with the truth.”

The defence also had her reaffirming her other lies to Singh, including that the number of the person who put the victim in touch with her was not working any more, or that she was not in touch with an organisation but rather “someone who came into my friend’s radar”.

At one point, Mr Jumabhoy asked about the lies she made in text messages, saying: “You’re adding more substance, aren’t you?”, “You’re adding more facts to support a lie”, and “So it’s a lie heaped upon a lie. And it’s going to be wrapped up in more lies isn’t it?”.

Ms Khan agreed to all these statements.

When Mr Jumabhoy asked if that was how she treated someone she revered – a point she had made when questioned by the prosecution – she said she allowed her lies to snowball as she feared disappointing Singh.

She later told the court that she could have continued lying, but chose to admit the lie over a phone call to Singh on Aug 7.

The lawyer put it to her that Singh had to ask her “point-blank whether the anecdote was true”, and that she had not volunteered the information. She agreed.

Mr Jumabhoy also asked if she had clarified what exactly the WP leaders wanted her to “take to the grave” during the Aug 8, 2021 meeting. That day, she had confessed her lie to Singh, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Faisal Manap.

She said she did not clarify.

With that, the lawyer put it to her that it was her assumption that the leaders had wanted her to take her lie in Parliament to the grave, and she said: “Yes”.

‘Substantiate?’

Mr Jumabhoy also sought to discredit Ms Khan based on her testimony before the Committee of Privileges (COP) in 2021. During that hearing, she said she did not know what Singh meant when he circled the problematic anecdote on a printed copy of her Aug 3 speech before it was delivered, and wrote “Substantiate?” next to it.

Mr Jumabhoy read out text messages between Singh and Ms Khan on Aug 3, shortly after she delivered the speech containing the lie. In them, Singh said: “I had a feeling this would happen. I highlighted this part in your draft speech. You should write to the police to clarify this matter.”

She had told Singh: “I thought I edited it enough to remove this possibility.”

If she had edited the statement, why did she say “no” when earlier asked if she made an edit based on Singh’s comment, Mr Jumabhoy asked.

At this point, Ms Khan asked the lawyer to repeat or rephrase his questions several times, as he continued to poke at this apparent inconsistency.

After she asked for clarity a third time, Mr Jumabhoy read out her text message again. “That’s your message there. You are now telling Mr Singh a lie.”

“What was your question again?” Ms Khan asked.

The lawyer repeated his question another time, and Ms Khan answered “no” when asked if she was telling Singh a lie in that instance.

This was because she thought she had already edited the speech enough before Singh’s feedback, and thus did not make further edits after seeing his comment, she added.

During the COP hearing, Ms Khan had also said: “At that point in time, I did not understand what that meant but, upon reflection, I understand now why he circled it and why he said what he said.”

She repeated this in her testimony on Oct 14, adding that she did not make further changes to the speech even after seeing Singh’s comment as she “didn’t really understand the severity of what he wrote”.

“I thought if it was something important, he would sit down and have a conversation with me, but he didn’t, so I didn’t make any changes,” she said in court when questioned by the prosecution.

Mr Jumabhoy later asked point-blank if Ms Khan was saying it is true she did not understand what “substantiate” meant, despite the evidence that she had given so far in court.

Ms Khan said nothing, prompting the judge to say: “You’d want to respond to that”.

“No, I don’t think I’ve anything else to say to that,” Ms Khan said.

Mr Jumabhoy then said her evidence to the COP was that she “didn’t understand” what substantiate meant, whereas her statement in court was that she understands the term to mean “make sure it happened” or “make sure it is true”. This is fundamentally different, he added.

Ms Khan told the court that she feels like she is saying the same things in different ways.

Defence says message on taking info to the grave was ‘never sent’

The defence also suggested that it appears that Ms Khan’s message to WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan on Aug 8, 2021 about taking “the information to the grave” was never sent, since no one responded to it.

In leading the evidence towards this, Mr Jumabhoy said Ms Khan was aware that the message was significant, but decided not to mention it until after Ms Loh had brought it up before the COP.

He pointed out that the message in question was deleted from her phone and had to be extracted from Mr Nathan’s phone.

Ms Khan said her phone was “a really old phone” that was “constantly crashing”, which was why she deleted a number of mobile applications, including WhatsApp.

Later, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock sought to clarify if the defence’s position was that the message was forged or not sent.

Mr Jumabhoy said given that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan did not react to the message, “it appears that it was never sent”.

The judge interjected to say he did not understand the point being made, adding: “They didn’t react means she didn’t send? They might have many reasons not to react? I think we can leave it to that.”

Prosecution objects to impeachment application

Near the end of the session, the prosecution protested when Mr Jumabhoy sought to establish that Ms Khan had produced one version of evidence in front of the court, and another in her statement to the police.

Singh had sent an e-mail on Oct 1, 2021 reminding MPs of parliamentary protocol, which Ms Khan had described in court as “almost a dig at me”. But Mr Jumabhoy noted that Ms Khan said “something quite different” to the police – that she was frightened that the untruth would be brought up in Parliament.

Mr Ang objected to the defence lawyer’s “liberal” referencing of police statements, noting that there must be a “material inconsistency” before he could do so.

“I’ve not objected so far because I am waiting for him to come to a material discrepancy. Surely, he must tell the court what it is,” Mr Ang said.

The judge agreed, saying that the discrepancy to launch this impeachment process has to be “material”, but the defence had not “really laid the ground for that”.

This was why he had a problem with how Ms Khan’s questioning had gone, he said.

Ms Khan was then asked to leave the courtroom for the defence to make its application, following which both lawyers rose to their feet. Mr Ang said he was struggling to understand Mr Jumabhoy’s characterisation of the discrepancy, adding that he was not sure why Ms Khan’s reaction to the e-mail was material.

“The simple point is that this e-mail speaks for itself. All of us can read it,” Mr Ang said.

He then said: “All this other evidence of whether it was a dig and whether she felt fear, all this is not the main point. One does not go through the whole impeachment procedure for something that is not really material.”

Mr Jumabhoy insisted that what Ms Khan presented as evidence in relation to the e-mail involved “two fundamentally different reactions”.

He also argued that Singh’s e-mail on Oct 1 “has to be a nudge” to clarify her untruth if viewed against the evidence of her police statement.

But Mr Ang said Ms Khan did not state if she viewed the e-mail as a nudge, direction or push to clarify the untruth.

She read it as a warning to all WP members that they have to substantiate any anecdotes made in Parliament, and not a direction to correct the lie she had already made, he noted.

Another inconsistency in question related to what Singh said on Oct 3 about whether Ms Khan’s issue would be brought up in Parliament.

The defence highlighted that Ms Khan had said in her police statement that Singh told her the issue is likely to be brought up, but said in court that he told her it is unlikely that the issue would come up.

The debate will continue on Oct 16.

Singh is represented by Mr Jumabhoy and Mr Aristotle Emmanuel Eng Zhen Yang, from Mr Jumabhoy’s law firm. Singh’s father, Mr Amarjit Singh, a former district judge, is also part of his legal team.

‘They already made up their minds’: Key points from Raeesah Khan’s evidence on day 2 of WP chief’s trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 16 Oct 2024

The prosecution wrapped up former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan’s evidence on the morning of Oct 15, the second day of Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh’s trial.

Singh, who is Leader of the Opposition, is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are three key points from Ms Khan’s evidence to the prosecution:

1. Ms Khan was surprised by WP leaders’ decision to put her through disciplinary hearing

Ms Khan said she was informed by WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim on Nov 2, 2021, that the party had formed a disciplinary panel (DP) against her.

Ms Lim told her over e-mail that the panel – consisting of Singh, Ms Lim and WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap – was tasked to investigate her lying episode and make recommendations to the party’s central executive committee (CEC) on steps to be taken against her.

But when she went before the panel on Nov 8, Ms Khan was surprised to find the WP leaders “sitting on kind of a stage”, and that she was “confronted” with questions about her character and general conduct as an MP, rather than her untruth to Parliament.

A big point of contention during the meeting was that she did not submit enough parliamentary questions and was not adequately present in Parliament and on the ground. Singh also spoke about her lack of discipline and punctuality, and that she was “on borrowed time” if the CEC allowed her to continue as an MP, she told the court.

Ms Khan said she was dumbfounded by the DP’s line of questioning. Two weeks after the meeting, she messaged Singh to seek a second meeting with the DP to speak on her record.

In response, Singh said not being prepared for the DP was “not becoming of an MP”, as the DP session was a very formal meeting. He told her to e-mail the panel to request a second hearing.

Ms Khan then met the DP on Nov 29, but came away from the session feeling “defeated and betrayed”. She felt that the WP leaders had already made up their minds that she had to resign.

The same leaders she had looked up to and trusted had used the DP to “almost pretend” that they had not been guiding her on her untruth since Aug 8, said Ms Khan.

Asked why she did not mention to the DP Singh’s Oct 3 advice to her to keep to her lie, Ms Khan said she assumed that the WP leaders already knew about it as “they talked to each other about everything”.

“I realised they weren’t really listening, they were just kind of writing down what I said,” she said.

2. What happened to ‘I won’t judge you’?

Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivakumar Ramasamy also led evidence on messages between Ms Khan and WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan around the time of the WP DP proceedings.

On Nov 13, 2021, Ms Khan disclosed to the two WP cadres that Singh had told her there would be no point continuing if she did not have the support of her teammates, which she took to mean he wanted her to resign.

In response, Mr Nathan said: “And he gets off scot-free, (because) now people don’t know that he knew that it was a lie?”

He noted that she would still be subjected to the Committee of Privileges as a former MP, and “could damage Pritam’s reputation” with the truth. Ms Khan replied: “I wouldn’t do that.”

Ms Khan also forwarded to the cadres some of her Nov 22 correspondence with Singh to request a second meeting with the DP.

Singh had told her that her character and behaviour were under review by the DP because of her actions in Parliament, and her decision to stick to her untruth on Oct 4.

Mr Nathan replied: “What happened to ‘I won’t judge you’?”

3. Why Ms Khan decided to tell the Committee of Privileges about WP leaders’ knowledge of her untruth

Having earlier decided to protect WP’s leaders regarding her untruth, Ms Khan was asked at what point she decided to tell the Committee of Privileges the truth about their involvement.

Ms Khan said there was no way she could evade questions about when the party leaders first knew about her lie after Ms Loh shared their Aug 8, 2021, text messages with the committee.

Following her meeting with Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal that day, Ms Khan had told the cadres that the WP leaders had “agreed that the best thing to do is to take the information to the grave”.

Ms Loh, followed by Ms Khan, had testified to the committee on Dec 2, 2021.

Ms Khan also noted that the WP leaders themselves had held a press conference on Dec 2 – the first day of the Committee of Privileges’ hearings – to detail when they knew about her untruth.

Singh told reporters that Ms Khan had told WP leaders about a week after she first spoke the untruth in Parliament, but they had decided to give her time to deal with the matter.

This was as Ms Khan had told them she was herself a victim of sexual assault, but had not told her family about it.

Pritam Singh's trial: Day 1 (14 Oct 2024)

WP chief Pritam Singh lied to downplay his responsibility in Raeesah Khan’s untruth, says prosecution

By Wong Pei Ting and Tham Yuen-C, The Straits Times, 14 Oct 2024

After he found out former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan had lied in Parliament, Workers’ Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh told a parliamentary committee investigating the matter that he had asked her to clarify the untruth to the House.

In reality, Singh had, on two different occasions, told Ms Khan to maintain her lie, said the prosecution on Oct 14, the first day of Singh’s trial.

This meant that in attempting to downplay his own responsibility in Ms Khan’s lying controversy, he had provided false testimony to the Committee of Privileges, it added.

Ms Khan admitted in Parliament on Nov 1, 2021, that she had misled Parliament on Aug 3 and Oct 4, 2021, when she claimed and then restated that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

She had first disclosed her lie to Singh on Aug 7, 2021.

The committee that investigated Ms Khan’s lie held hearings for seven days between Dec 2 and Dec 22, 2021, and its report was debated in Parliament on Feb 15, 2022, which was when the House resolved to refer Singh to the public prosecutor for a further probe.

Singh was charged on March 19, 2024. He is contesting two charges under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act, which makes it an offence to lie in response to questions posed by Parliament or its committee.

If convicted, he could be fined up to $7,000, jailed for up to three years, or both, on each charge.

Calling on Ms Khan as the trial’s first witness, the prosecution sought to show how Singh and other WP leaders had, in meetings with her on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, told her to keep to her lie, and had advised her to clarify her untruth only on Oct 12 that year.

From Aug 9 to Oct 3, nothing was done in relation to any public statements she should make on the matter.

But after Oct 11, the party’s leaders were deeply involved in preparing her public statements. These included nine drafts of a personal statement that Ms Khan made in Parliament on Nov 1 admitting to her untruth.

In his opening statement, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock said the prosecution’s witnesses will include former WP chief Low Thia Khiang.

Mr Low was informed of Ms Khan’s untrue anecdote to Parliament by Singh and WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim on Oct 11, 2021.

Mr Ang said Singh, 48, lied to the committee in December 2021 about what he wanted Ms Khan to do about her Aug 3, 2021, untruth in Parliament.

Contrary to what he told the committee, Singh had, at the Aug 8 meeting, been prepared for Ms Khan and the WP leaders to “take (the matter) to the grave”.

“It was clear to Ms Khan then that her party leaders did not want her to clarify the untruth and that she could leave the matter be,” Mr Ang said.

When they met again on Oct 3, Singh did not tell Ms Khan she should clarify the matter if it came up in Parliament the next day, said Mr Ang. Instead, Singh gave Ms Khan the impression that she could choose to continue with her narrative and that he would not judge her if she did so.

Singh, a trained lawyer and experienced politician, had “even on his account to the Committee of Privileges” told Ms Khan that he would not judge her, Mr Ang stressed. “I think that is self-explanatory,” he said.

“We will show that the inexorable conclusion to be drawn is that the accused had guided Ms Khan on Oct 3, 2021, to maintain the untruth if the matter was raised in Parliament on Oct 4, 2021,” he said.

When Singh, Ms Lim and Ms Khan met in the evening of Oct 4 after that day’s Parliament sitting, neither WP leader told Ms Khan to clarify the untruth. Instead, it is the prosecution’s case that Singh had told Ms Khan that it was “too late” to do so, Mr Ang said.

The trial, which has been fixed for 16 days until Nov 13, is being heard before Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan at the State Courts.

Before trial proceedings began proper, Singh’s charges were read to him again, and the WP chief reiterated his earlier not-guilty plea before a courtroom with almost 40 people in the gallery.

The WP chief was seated a row behind his lawyers. His father Amarjit Singh, a former district judge who is part of his legal team, was seated beside him. Notable figures in the gallery included WP MPs Faisal Manap, Gerald Giam, Jamus Lim and Louis Chua, and social media influencer Wendy Cheng, better known as Xiaxue.

Mr Ang said “there was simply no way” that Singh intended for Ms Khan’s lies to be clarified when Parliament sat on Oct 4, 2021, as the accused had claimed.

This was because no preparatory steps were taken then, compared with after the Oct 11, 2021, meeting that involved Mr Low.

At that meeting, Mr Low advised Singh and Ms Khan to clarify the untruth in Parliament as soon as possible.

Subsequently, Ms Khan underwent “careful preparations” in the lead-up to her eventual clarification to Parliament, noted the prosecution.

The WP central executive committee (CEC) also met on Oct 29, 2021, and heard Ms Khan deliver a draft of the statement that she would read in Parliament, and the CEC members had the opportunity to comment on the draft.

Mr Ang noted that there was no discussion about the untrue anecdote between Singh and Ms Khan from Aug 8 to Oct 3, 2021, let alone the fact that it ought to be clarified in Parliament.

“September came and went. We come to October. Between Aug 8 and Oct 2, silence by the accused person. Not a whisper from him about this untruth, what to do, whether (Ms Khan) had to correct it, how to correct it. It’s as if the matter had been buried,” Mr Ang told the court.

After the Oct 11 meeting with Mr Low – who remains a member of the WP CEC – Singh, Ms Khan and Ms Lim met a day later. That was when Singh and Ms Lim told Ms Khan that the issue would not go away and that she should clarify the untruth in Parliament, said the prosecution.

The prosecution’s case is thus that until Oct 11, 2021, none of WP’s leaders had instructed Ms Khan to clarify her untruth with the police or in Parliament, Mr Ang added.

Singh is represented by former prosecutor Andre Jumabhoy and Mr Aristotle Emmanuel Eng Zhen Yang, from Mr Jumabhoy’s law firm.

Other than Mr Low and Ms Khan, the prosecution said it would call two former WP cadres, Ms Loh Pei Ying and Mr Yudhishthra Nathan, as witnesses.

Both had assisted Ms Khan in her MP duties and had “several important interactions” with her and Singh. For instance, Ms Khan had updated them via WhatsApp shortly after her Oct 3 meeting with the WP leaders that “they’ve agreed that the best thing to do is to take the information to the grave”.

“The totality of the evidence will demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt that (Singh) had falsely testified on the two matters set out in the charges, and (he) ought therefore to be convicted of both the charges,” said Mr Ang.

The prosecution said it would be able to wrap up Ms Khan’s evidence on the morning of Oct 15, which means it would be the defence’s turn to cross-examine the former MP.

‘I revered him’: 7 key points from former WP MP Raeesah Khan’s testimony in Pritam Singh trial

By Wong Pei Ting and Wong Shiying, The Straits Times, 14 Oct 2024

Former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan is the first witness the prosecution called to testify on Oct 14, the first day of the trial of Workers’ Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh.

Singh is contesting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to look into the lying controversy involving Ms Khan.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

Here are seven points that surfaced from Ms Khan’s testimony on the first day of the trial:

1. Singh suggested that WP leaders and Ms Khan take her untruth ‘to the grave’

After relating the anecdote in Parliament on Aug 3, she admitted to Singh that it was untrue on Aug 7 after persistent questioning from the WP chief.

Ms Khan testified that when they met on Aug 8, 2021, Singh initially said he should take her to the Committee of Privileges, but then changed his mind and said “this is something we would all have to take to the grave”.

From that meeting, which was when she disclosed her lie to WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap, Ms Khan said her understanding was that she did not have to do anything.

This was after Ms Lim told her that the anecdote would probably not come up again. She also received no advice from the WP leaders on actions to be taken, whether it be to draft a speech, make a clarification, or e-mail the police with more information, she said.

Right after the meeting ended at around 12.40pm, Ms Khan sent a message to WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan about what transpired, which was that she had told the WP leaders about her untruth and “they said it would be best to take the info to the grave”.

Ms Khan said she did so as she had admitted her lie to the two party cadres, whom she called her close friends in WP, and wanted to keep them updated.

2. ‘He wouldn’t judge me for continuing to lie’

Singh next met Ms Khan at her home on Oct 3, 2021, where they had a private chat at the corner of her living room.

He told her that her lie was unlikely to come up in Parliament the next day. But if it did, he would not judge her for continuing the narrative, recounted Ms Khan.

Asked what she meant by “continuing the narrative”, Ms Khan said it meant continuing to lie. This made her feel confident that she had his support, and grateful as he had gone to see her at her home, she added.

Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam raised the issue the next day. Four minutes into his ministerial statement, Ms Khan sent Singh the message: “What should I do, Pritam?”

She had hoped that Singh would reaffirm what he said the day before, but he did not reply. She kept up her lie, and said she was unable to reach the victim in her anecdote.

That night, Ms Khan met Singh and Ms Lim at the Leader of the Opposition’s office. She offered to tell the truth, but Singh told her “it’s too late for that”, she said.

3. Party leaders were deeply involved in Ms Khan’s public statements

The prosecution’s line of questioning sought to show the degree of involvement that WP’s leaders had in key public statements by Ms Khan, including her statement to address the fallout around Muslim issues from her Aug 3, 2021, speech in Parliament.

This draft statement, prepared on Aug 8, was shared with Singh to “get his approval”, as well as Mr Faisal for his input, said Ms Khan.

The court heard that Singh sent a version he had edited to Ms Khan, and told her to “read this version carefully, word by word” and to let him know what she thought. Ms Khan then made some further edits, and after Singh gave his go-ahead, she posted it on Facebook.

In contrast, her understanding from the Aug 8 meeting was to not do anything about her untrue anecdote, she said.

It was only on Oct 12 that Ms Khan said she was advised by WP leaders to clarify her untruth. At a meeting with Singh and Ms Lim at his house, the WP chief said it would be best for her to tell the truth, and Ms Khan was told to draft a statement and to deliver it when Parliament next sat.

Nine drafts were eventually prepared in the lead-up to her clarification on Nov 1, 2021. This was because there was some back and forth on what she should say, taking in points from Singh, Ms Lim, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan.

WP leaders were also closely involved in her public apology when some old Facebook posts of hers resurfaced after she was put forward as a candidate for the 2020 General Election, prompting her to have to “make a short speech” to the media in the lead-up to the polls.

When Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivakumar Ramasamy asked if anyone had helped her with this speech, Ms Khan said the media team had helped, with Singh giving his input as well.

4. Ms Khan ‘wanted to protect’ her leaders

In her Nov 1, 2021, statement in Parliament admitting to her lie, Ms Khan did not mention that she had disclosed her untruth to Singh on Aug 7 and to the other WP leaders on Aug 8.

Asked why, she said she wanted to protect them, and did not want to implicate anybody else in her mistake.

The prosecution then asked her why she omitted to mention Singh’s Oct 3 advice to her to maintain her lie, when quizzed by Leader of the House Indranee Rajah on Nov 1 as to why she repeated her lie to Parliament on Oct 4.

To this, Ms Khan reiterated her earlier point about wanting to protect her party leaders, and to take full responsibility for her mistake.

After she delivered her Nov 1 statement, Singh said she did well and he was there if she needed anything else from him. Ms Khan said the messages made her feel comforted and supported.

5. Ms Khan underestimated need to substantiate her Aug 3, 2021, speech

Recounting her speech that contained the untrue anecdote, Ms Khan said Singh had seen the anecdote on the morning of the Parliament sitting. He had circled a part of it and wrote the word “substantiate” on a printed copy of the speech before returning it to her.

Ms Khan, however, did not make any further changes to the speech as she “didn’t really understand the severity of what he wrote”, she told the court.

“I thought if it was something important, he would sit down and have a conversation with me, but he didn’t, so I didn’t make any changes,” she added.

DPP Ramasamy followed up by asking what she understood by the word “substantiate”, and Ms Khan said she thought it meant that she “had to make sure it happened”.

She said she kept the anecdote in her speech as she had heard accounts of survivors being questioned in ways that were “not helpful” and which affected their confidence, “but obviously (lying) was a terrible thing to do”.

6. ‘Politically speaking, it was a bad day in the office for us’

After Ms Khan’s speech in the House on Aug 3, 2021, Singh continued to message Ms Khan on Aug 4 and 5 to comfort her. He also urged her to contact the rape victim cited in her anecdote.

In one of these messages on Aug 4, Singh said: “Please don’t be beguiled by this support, politically speaking it was a bad day in the office for us”.

Ms Khan replied to Singh’s text, saying: “I wonder, Pritam, if I’m not cut out for this.” She followed this up with another text that read: “Perhaps we can meet next week to discuss my future and if this path is meant for me”.

This was because she was feeling “extremely lost” after having made her mistake, said Ms Khan. She was also having a lot of self-doubt over whether being an MP suited her.

Singh texted Ms Khan again on Aug 5 to ask if she had any luck contacting the woman mentioned in her anecdote, and the organisation that had linked Ms Khan up with her.

By this point, Ms Khan said, she was terrified and “kind of just wanted the messages to stop”, so she responded with: “I am still trying and will update you as soon as I can.”

Asked why she did not tell Singh the truth on Aug 5, Ms Khan said she was still grappling with her mistake and the effect it would have on other survivors of sexual assault.

Telling the truth would also have meant telling Singh about her personal experience of sexual assault, which was difficult, she added.

Ms Khan later broke down in court when asked who knew about her personal experience of sexual assault. She said WP’s leaders did not ask her to tell her parents about her experience, and she had not planned to do so.

“I don’t think any parent wants to hear that their child has been assaulted in that kind of way,” she said.

“As a mum myself, it would be so painful to hear from my daughter that something happened to her, so you know, I never intended for (my parents) to learn about the specifics of the assault, which later they did because of what Mr Singh said at the Committee of Privileges without my permission,” she added.

7. Ms Khan had ‘revered’ Singh

As a political newbie in 2020, Ms Khan said she saw Singh as a mentor and someone who could guide her as an MP.

“I revered him. I thought he was someone I really looked up to, someone that I thought really knew everything, someone that would have all the answers,” she told the court.

Asked to recount her time as a first-term MP when she was 26 years old, Ms Khan said she faced a “tricky time” after entering Parliament, as she had felt alone and unsure of herself.

It was Singh who had approached her and told her to run as a candidate in the last general election, which was held on July 10, 2020. She had just started volunteering with the party at the start of that year, while Singh was already WP’s secretary-general.

As a volunteer, she helped in Singh’s Meet-The-People Sessions as a case writer and later with his house visits.

The court also heard that, upon disclosing to the three WP leaders on Aug 8, 2021, that she had lied, Ms Khan was relieved as she had told the people she trusted most in the party to advise her on the matter.

“I felt a huge sense of relief because I didn’t hold that lie in me any more,” she added.

Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh charged with lying to Parliament over Raeesah Khan’s case, pleads not guilty

2 charges against Pritam Singh for false testimonies to Committee of Privileges

Alleged untruths are in relation to lying controversy involving ex-MP Raeesah Khan

Faisal Manap will not be charged for refusing to answer questions by the Committee of Privileges: SPF, AGC

By Tham Yuen-C and Nadine Chua, The Straits Times, 20 Mar 2024

Leader of the Opposition and Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh was charged on March 19 with two counts of lying to a parliamentary committee, two years after the police opened investigations into his conduct before the Committee of Privileges.

The charges relate to his testimony before the committee, which had been convened in November 2021 to look into a lying controversy involving his party’s former MP Raeesah Khan.

The committee called Singh as a witness, and said later he had not been truthful during the hearings while under oath. It recommended referring him and WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap to the public prosecutor for further investigations with a view to consider criminal proceedings, which Parliament later endorsed.

Standing in the dock on March 19, Singh, who was unrepresented, pleaded not guilty to the two charges under Section 31(q) of the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act, and claimed trial.

The 47-year-old opposition leader requested a four-week adjournment to engage a lawyer. A pre-trial conference has been scheduled for April 17.

Lying in response to questions posed by a parliamentary committee is considered a criminal offence under the Act, and carries a maximum fine of $7,000 and a jail term of up to three years, or both.

In response to media queries, an Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) spokesman said it is for the court to decide what the appropriate punishment should be if Singh is found guilty.

The spokesman added that the AGC will be asking the court to impose a fine for each of the charges if Singh is convicted. This is based on the “evidence presently available and considering the totality of the circumstances”, the spokesman said.

Political and legal experts told The Straits Times that the WP chief is unlikely to lose his parliamentary seat, even if he is convicted and the total fine for both offences exceeds $10,000 – the threshold upon which an MP faces disqualification from the House. This is as the threshold is for a single offence, rather than a group, to disqualify an individual convicted for offences of a certain magnitude, said law professor Eugene Tan.

In a joint statement, the AGC and police also said the prosecution has decided not to charge Mr Faisal for his refusal to answer relevant questions that had been put to him by the committee. The WP MP was issued an advisory by the police to familiarise himself with conduct expected of MPs under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act, and to refrain from any act that may be in breach of it.

Singh arrived at the State Courts at 10.45am, clad in a black suit. When asked for comment after being charged, he said he would be releasing a statement later. He subsequently said he would continue with all his parliamentary duties and town council responsibilities until the legal process “comes to a complete close”.

The committee’s recommendation for Singh to be referred to the public prosecutor came after it investigated Ms Khan for lying in Parliament.

During a debate on empowering women on Aug 3, 2021, Ms Khan, then an MP for Sengkang GRC, had claimed to have accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim again in the House on Oct 4, 2021.

This was later found to be untrue, and Ms Khan eventually told Parliament on Nov 1, 2021, that she had been sexually assaulted herself and had heard about the victim’s experience at a support group session.

She resigned from the WP and her parliamentary seat on Nov 30, 2021.

In the charge sheets, Singh was said to have given a false answer to the committee’s questions on Dec 10 and 15, 2021.

On one occasion, he had said that after an Aug 8 meeting between him, Ms Khan and WP leaders Sylvia Lim and Faisal, he wanted Ms Khan to clarify that she had lied in Parliament on Aug 3.

On two other occasions, he had said that during a meeting with Ms Khan on Oct 3, he had asked her to come clean about her lie if the issue was brought up in the House on Oct 4.

The eight-member committee comprised seven People’s Action Party MPs and one WP MP. They were then Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin, Minister for Sustainability and the Environment Grace Fu, Minister for National Development Desmond Lee, Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Edwin Tong, Senior Minister of State for Manpower and Defence Zaqy Mohamad, Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Law Rahayu Mahzam, Hougang MP and WP organising secretary Dennis Tan, and Chua Chu Kang GRC MP Don Wee.

After a total of 31 hours of hearings held over several weeks, the committee found Ms Khan guilty of abuse of privilege and recommended that she be fined a total of $35,000.

It also recommended that Singh and Mr Faisal be referred to the public prosecutor for further investigations – Singh for not being truthful in his testimony under oath, and Mr Faisal for his “flagrant and inexcusable” refusal to answer relevant questions.

Ms Lim had also been called as a witness by the committee, but was not referred for further investigations.

At the crux of the matter was the three months that elapsed before Ms Khan confessed in Parliament on Nov 1, 2021, to lying.

The committee concluded that Singh had played “the key and leading role” in advising her not to come clean after she first lied, and said he had lied when he asserted during the hearings that he had asked her to set the record straight in the House.

Singh has consistently denied the allegations. Though he acknowledged that he had given Ms Khan too much time to clarify the lie, he said he had done so as he was sympathetic to the fact that she had been a victim of sexual assault.

In its 1,180-page report presented to Parliament on Feb 10, 2022, the committee said it was beyond its purview to recommend that any penalty be imposed on Singh and Mr Faisal.

The committee added that while the default position is that Parliament should deal with matters that arise in a parliamentary context, it appeared best in this case that the matter “be dealt with through a trial process, rather than by Parliament alone”, given the seriousness of the two WP leaders’ actions.

In February 2022, after debating the committee’s report, Parliament voted in favour of the committee’s recommendation. The Attorney-General then referred both men to the police for investigation.

Political watchers and observers have been looking out for updates in the case, with some wondering about its implications for Singh’s political future and how it might impact the WP.

Singh had posted online in February 2022 about the prospect of losing his seat as an MP or being disqualified from standing for election, since this could happen if a person was jailed for at least one year or fined at least $2,000. The disqualification lasts for five years.

The Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act was amended in May 2022 such that an MP will be disqualified if convicted and fined at least $10,000 for an offence.

Parliament votes to refer Workers' Party leaders Pritam Singh, Faisal Manap to Public Prosecutor as recommended by the Committee of Privileges

Singapore's system will fail if trust is eroded and lost: PM Lee Hsien Loong at COP report debate

Honesty of opposition no longer inconsequential in a more contested landscape: PM Lee

Pritam Singh rejects Committee of Privileges' findings, says Raeesah Khan was disenchanted with Workers' Party

Workers' Party leaders did not address key findings from COP during debate: Indranee Rajah

Parliament also agrees with committee's finding that Ms Raeesah Khan be fined $35,000 for lying in Parliament

By Tham Yuen-C, Senior Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 15) voted to refer Leader of the Opposition and Workers' Party chief Pritam Singh for further probe by the Public Prosecutor over a lying scandal, after a four-hour debate in which Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong urged MPs from both sides of the aisle to vote with their conscience.

PM Lee warned that trust in Parliament and Singapore's political system will be eroded if flagrant, egregious transgressions by MPs were allowed to pass.

The vote came after a total of 10 MPs, including three from the WP and two Nominated MPs, spoke on the report of Parliament's privileges committee that had called for Mr Singh to be referred to the Public Prosecutor for possible criminal charges over lies he told under oath.

Speaking before the vote, Mr Singh said he had no objection to being referred to the Public Prosecutor and would do his utmost to clear his name.

The committee was set up to look into lies told by former MP Raeesah Khan in Parliament on Aug 3 and Oct 4, but had found serious misconduct by Mr Singh, as well as WP chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap, in the process of its investigations.

PM Lee said integrity was the linchpin of democracy, adding that giving Mr Singh and his fellow WP leaders a free pass would be detrimental to democracy.

"A democracy not founded on integrity stands on shaky ground, and will soon totter," he added.

The three WP leaders, speaking during the debate, maintained that they had never asked Ms Khan to take her lie to the grave, as she had claimed.

The House voted on two motions, the first of which called on it to agree with the committee's finding that Ms Khan was guilty of abusing parliamentary privilege by lying in Parliament last year, and its recommendation that she be fined $35,000 - $25,000 for the lies she told in August and $10,000 for lying again in October.

Leader of the House Indranee Rajah had proposed to allow MPs to vote on the different parts of this motion separately, after Mr Singh said the WP would not support the part about Ms Khan's reduced $10,000 fine that was premised on her receiving guidance by WP leaders to lie.

The second motion, which was also split, called on Parliament to agree to refer Mr Singh as well as Mr Faisal to the Public Prosecutor. It also seeks to defer any parliamentary sanctions on the duo and Ms Lim with regard to Ms Khan's lie, until the conclusion of any investigations and possible criminal proceedings against Mr Singh.

Both motions were passed, with Mr Singh and the WP MPs supporting part of the first motion, and voting against the second.

Progress Singapore Non-Constituency MPs Leong Mun Wai and Hazel Poa voted in support of all parts of both motions, except for the $10,000 fine for Ms Khan that the WP also voted against.

Ms Khan had on Aug 3 claimed to have accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where officers allegedly handled the matter insensitively and drove the victim to tears. She repeated the untruth on Oct 4. She has since resigned from her MP seat and from the party.

The matter was referred to the Committee of Privileges, which after hearing evidence from Ms Khan and other witnesses, including the WP leaders, concluded that Ms Khan should be fined $35,000 in all.

The panel also said Mr Singh and Mr Faisal should be referred to the Public Prosecutor for investigations to consider if criminal proceedings ought to be instituted.

The panel had determined that Mr Singh had lied while giving evidence under oath and that this could amount to perjury, and that Mr Faisal's refusal to answer questions could amount to contempt of Parliament.

At the start of the debate, Ms Indranee noted that the ability to speak freely in Parliament is one of the most powerful privileges in a parliamentary democracy such as Singapore, but this must be done responsibly and not abused.

Speaking next, Mr Singh rejected the committee's conclusions that he had guided Ms Khan to lie to Parliament last year, and that he had committed any offences as part of his role in the entire affair.

He acknowledged that he had given her too much time to clarify the lie, and said he had done so because he was sympathetic to how she had been a sexual assault victim.

PM Lee, in his speech, underlined the gravity of the matter before the House, noting that for Singapore's system to work, people must be able to respect the institution of Parliament and trust its members, processes and proceedings.

That is why the right norms of behaviour among MPs have to be guarded carefully, foremost being to tell the truth always and to do right by Singapore, even when - and especially if - it is hard or awkward, he said.

"If something goes wrong, or something wrong has been done, own up and take responsibility - do not hide, dodge, or spin further lies, to obfuscate and cover up the original fib," PM Lee said as he called on all MPs to vote with their conscience on the two motions.

"The COP report is long and detailed, but the core issues are few and stark... Online, people call this Raeesah-Gate, after Watergate. And just like in the original Watergate affair, while investigating Ms Khan's transgressions, the COP unexpectedly stumbled upon a cover-up by WP leaders, even more serious than the original offence," he added.

"Now with the findings before us, it is our responsibility, Parliament's responsibility, for the MPs to take the necessary and appropriate course of action."

Said PM Lee: "If Parliament condones lying among its own members, how can Singaporeans trust the institution of Parliament? If we let flagrant, egregious transgressions pass, it will erode trust in our leaders, respect for Parliament, and support for our whole political system, and Singapore will be heading for trouble."

Singapore's system will fail if trust is eroded and lost: PM Lee Hsien Loong at COP report debate

By Lim Yan Liang, Assistant Political Editor, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

For Singapore's system to work, people must be able to respect the institution of Parliament and trust its members, processes and proceedings, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday (Feb 15).

Without this critical trust in the apex institution of Singapore's democracy, the system cannot work, he said in his speech during the debate on two motions related to the report by Parliament's Committee of Privileges on untruths spoken in the House by former Workers' Party (WP) MP Raeesah Khan.

That is why the right norms of behaviour among MPs have to be guarded carefully, foremost being to tell the truth always and to do right by Singapore, even when - and especially if - it is hard or awkward, he said.

"If something goes wrong, or something wrong has been done, own up and take responsibility - do not hide, dodge, or spin further lies, to obfuscate and cover up the original fib," PM Lee said as he called on all MPs to vote with their conscience on the two motions.

The first motion calls on the House to agree with the committee's finding that Ms Khan was guilty of abusing parliamentary privilege by lying in August and October last year, and for her to be fined $35,000.

The second motion calls on Parliament to agree to refer Workers' Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh as well as WP vice-chair Faisal Manap to the Public Prosecutor.

Calling integrity the linchpin of democracy, PM Lee said that with Singapore heading towards a more contested political landscape, the competence and honesty of the Opposition is no longer an inconsequential matter. Every election henceforth will be about who can win the mandate to run the country, he added.

"The question of 'What are the right values and how should we uphold them?' becomes of fundamental importance for both the Opposition and the governing party," he said.

MPs must decide what Parliament will do about the untruths repeated in the House, as well as about the senior leaders of the WP being found by the committee to have lied under oath in their testimonies.

"Can we pretend nothing happened? Or if that is too much to stomach, given the strong evidence laid out by the (committee), perhaps we lower our standards just a little, note that untruths were told, but argue that it was after all not so serious a lie, and no harm was done?" PM Lee asked.

"If we do either of these things, we too would become complicit in dishonouring and demeaning Parliament."

PM Lee said he was glad that the committee had come to the conclusion that Mr Singh and Mr Faisal should be referred to the Public Prosecutor for having appeared to have committed a criminal offence.

"It could have recommended that Parliament administer a token slap on the wrist, but that would show that we were taking a very serious matter rather lightly," he said.

"Worse, by lowering our norms, we would be telling Singaporeans that it is really not so bad for elected leaders to lie."

While Singapore is a high-trust society today, nothing guarantees that it will always remain one, stressed PM Lee.

This is why the country has to steadfastly maintain high standards and ensure its leaders embody the right values, he added.

"Call out wrongs when wrongs arise, mete out punishment where punishment is due, preserve the sanctity of our institutions," he told MPs.

"Never take public trust for granted and never allow lies, half-truths and falsehoods to become the accepted norm in politics."

So long as the People's Action Party is the Government, Mr Lee said, it will not shy away from doing what is necessary to uphold the right norms in Parliament and to imbue Singaporeans and their leaders with the values critical to sustain trust in the system that is critical to Singapore's success.

"With our lives and future at stake, everyone participating in the system must be held to the same standards. There can be no excuses, no double standards, and no pardoning of inexcusable behaviour, just because the offending party portrays itself as the underdog," he said.

PM Lee noted that the probe into Ms Khan’s lies had uncovered a much larger problem.

“Online, people call this Raeesah-Gate, after Watergate,” he said, referencing the political scandal involving former United States president Richard Nixon.

“And just like in the original Watergate affair, while investigating Ms Khan’s transgressions, the COP unexpectedly stumbled upon a cover-up by WP leaders, even more serious than the original offence.” 

While the committee did not expect this, it is now Parliament’s responsibility to take the necessary and appropriate course of action, he added.

That each MP must be honest is non-negotiable, said PM Lee, as being truthful is fundamental for there to be trust and for democracy to work well. Singaporeans’ trust in their leaders and respect for Parliament will be eroded if it condones lying among its own members, he said.

As the longest serving member in the House who has seen first-hand how the founding generation built it up, PM Lee said he felt a greater responsibility than most to safeguard this “sacred trust”.

“It should be a sacred trust too, for every MP,” he said. “We must all never fail to serve Singaporeans to the best of our ability, responsibly and honestly, and uphold this institution of Parliament, as the foundation of a robust and healthy democracy.”

Pritam Singh rejects Committee of Privileges' findings, says Raeesah Khan was disenchanted with Workers' Party

By Justin Ong, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh on Tuesday (Feb 15) rejected a parliamentary committee's conclusions that he had guided his former Workers' Party (WP) MP Raeesah Khan to lie to Parliament last year, and that he had committed any offences as part of his role in the entire affair.

He acknowledged that he had given her too much time to clarify the lie, and said he had done so because she was the victim of a sexual assault and had confided in him. 

But Mr Singh rejected Ms Khan's assertion that he had told her to take her lie "to the grave", and said a natural explanation for her behaviour was how it was human nature to feel "disenchantment" with the party and its leadership once she saw the curtain coming down on her political career after she resigned.

He also rejected the committee's finding that he had guided Ms Khan to lie for a third time in October.

"Not everybody reacts with loyalty to their party or their leaders when they realise that the curtain is coming down on them or their political careers," he said.

"When your departure is precipitated by an overwhelming loss of support from your party members and colleagues except for your closest allies, from a human behaviour standpoint, I can understand why a person would turn against one's party leaders."

The WP chief was speaking during a parliamentary debate on two motions relating to the Committee of Privilege's recommendations to fine Ms Khan $35,000, and for him and WP vice-chair Faisal Manap to be referred to the Public Prosecutor for possible criminal charges.

Mr Singh also said the evidence he submitted to the committee had either not been noted or included in the committee's report, and that the panel had also ignored some contemporaneous evidence given by party members even though it gave weight to such evidence from Ms Khan.

Leader of the House Indranee Rajah had filed motions calling on the House to agree with the findings and recommendations of a Committee of Privileges' (COP) report released last Thursday (Feb 10).

The panel, which comprised seven People's Action Party (PAP) MPs and one WP MP, had called for a $35,000 fine for Ms Khan for lying in August and October last year; and for Mr Singh and Mr Faisal to be referred to the Public Prosecutor for further investigations with a view to considering criminal proceedings.

On top of concluding that Ms Khan was acting under the guidance of party leaders when she repeated her lie, the panel determined that Mr Singh had lied while giving evidence under oath and that this could amount to perjury, and that Mr Faisal's refusal to answer questions could amount to contempt of Parliament.

Joining the debate, Mr Singh opened his 15-minute speech by saying that when seen as a whole, the COP’s processes and the report before Parliament “leave many questions, gaps and omissions, and by extension, suggest political partisanship”.

He noted that Ms Khan’s testimony that she was instructed to take her lie to the grave by the WP leadership was “uncorroborated” and a “fabrication which never came out from any witness” aside from Ms Khan herself.

“I reject this finding completely. At no time did I instruct Ms Khan to hide the truth,” he reiterated. “At the meeting on Aug 8, none of the three WP leaders told Ms Khan to take a lie to the grave.”

Aug 8 was when Ms Khan first came clean internally to WP leaders, explaining that she lied because of her own personal trauma of being sexually assaulted.

Mr Singh then sought to explain Ms Khan’s reasons for making such a claim, saying: “Her post-resignation behaviour was natural in the arena of political participation.”

He cited former PAP MP for Whampoa Augustine Tan’s observation that there was a lot of “strain, tension and resentment” when older lawmakers were told to step aside amid Singapore’s transition from its first-generation (1G) to 2G leadership.

“One outgoing minister even spoke against the candidature of (Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong) at the 1984 elections, such was the level of disenchantment,” said Mr Singh.

He raised another example in former deputy prime minister Toh Chin Chye, whom he recalled becoming a vocal critic of the PAP after stepping down from the Cabinet in 1981 and being “pushed” to the backbench.

“The comparison with Ms Khan’s behaviour and testimony at the COP is apt,” said Mr Singh.

On the report itself, he said his main grouse was what he felt to be a “disregard” of evidence he had submitted, which would cast doubt on the report’s eventual findings including the “unparliamentary language used at various places which is not supported by evidence”.

Mr Singh said: “The most egregious in my mind, is the conclusion that in seeking a psychiatric evaluation for Ms Khan, I had somehow weaponised her condition.”

He said he had mentioned the evaluation because Ms Khan had revealed herself – of her own accord to a WP disciplinary panel looking into her conduct – to be seeing a psychotherapist who had referred her to a psychiatrist.

Second, Ms Khan had voluntarily shared with the panel, which included Mr Singh, that she suffered from dissociation – evidence that had also been forwarded to the committee, the WP chief said.

He added that when asked an open question by the committee as to why Ms Khan would make certain statements, he attempted to give a fair answer in line with what Ms Khan had herself revealed.

“If the COP was indeed a fact-finding body, should I not have raised the matter of Ms Khan possibly labouring under a condition to the COP?” Mr Singh asked. “I believed… the COP ought to see it as a mitigatory point in her favour.”

He rejected what he saw as the committee’s assertion that “in raising the matter of Ms Khan’s mental health to a fact-finding body with a view to considering an appropriate punishment on her, I had somehow smeared her, or worse, somehow cast aspersions on those with mental health conditions”.

Mr Singh also said he strongly disagreed with how the committee had characterised his evidence in “antagonistic” terms when it came to WP cadre members Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan. Ms Loh was Ms Khan’s secretarial assistant and Mr Nathan was also aiding her.

He cited how he had given evidence to show that he had good reasons for concluding that their loyalty to Ms Khan was a consideration in their minds.

For instance, said Mr Singh, Ms Loh had made clear to the WP disciplinary panel that resignation “should not be on the cards” because in Ms Loh’s view, what Ms Khan did “was not serious as it was not as if Ms Khan had… laundered money”.

“Such evidence does not appear to have been considered by the COP,” said Mr Singh.

He added that the committee’s final report had also omitted character references he made in evidence about Ms Loh and Mr Nathan, calling them “decent, good people (who) have done a lot for the party”. 

“I still hold that view,” said Mr Singh.

On why he felt such evidence had not been considered by the COP, Mr Singh said: “I can only speculate… Could it be to strategically drive a wedge and disunite the Workers’ Party – and to show that its leaders recklessly cast aspersions on their own members?”

Concluding his speech, he said that while he objected to the motion calling on the House to refer him to the Public Prosecutor, should Parliament choose to adopt it, “I intend to clear my name and will cooperate fully with the Public Prosecutor”. 

"For this reason, I have kept my comments on the COP report for today's purposes very narrow and limited," he added.

Singapore not immune to decline if it lets political standards slide: PM Lee

By Lim Yan Liang, Assistant Political Editor, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

While most countries are founded on the basis of high ideals and noble values, the tone of the society changes as later generations take over and things gradually go downhill, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said on Tuesday (Feb 15).

Marshalling four contemporary examples, he warned that Singapore is not immune from going down a similar road.

Leaders who fought for and won independence are often exceptional individuals who came through the crucible of fire as leaders of men and nations, said PM Lee, such as David Ben-Gurion of Israel and Jawaharlal Nehru of India.

"Imbued with enormous personal prestige, they strive to meet the high expectations of their peoples to build a brave new world, and shape a new future for their peoples and for their countries," he said, noting that their countries began as healthy democracies with idealism and zeal.

Succeeding generations, however, found it hard to sustain this momentum past the initial fervour.

"All too easily - a slip here, a blind eye there, a fudge, a trim - and gradually things go downhill. The texture of politics changes, respect for politicians declines," noted Mr Lee.

After a while, the electorate comes to regard this as the norm, and that one cannot expect better, and so standards get debased, trust is eroded, and the country declines further, he added.

The result is that many political systems today would be quite unrecognisable to their founding leaders, he said.

Israel, for instance, has morphed into a country that can barely form a government despite four general elections in two years, while a stream of its senior politicians and officials face "a litany of criminal charges", said Mr Lee.

In India, almost half the MPs in the Lok Sabha (Lower House) have criminal charges pending against them, including for rape and murder according to media reports, he noted, though it is said that many of the allegations are politically motivated.

In the United States, trust in the political system has all but broken down, with three-quarters of Republicans believing that the last presidential election was stolen and that Mr Joe Biden is not a legitimate president, Mr Lee added.

Britain, also called "the mother of Parliaments" for its Westminster system, is dealing with a severe breakdown of trust and lost credibility due to the "Partygate" scandal where it ignored its own Covid-19 rules, Mr Lee said.

Quoting former British prime minister John Major, who recently spoke about the lamentable state of British politics today, Mr Lee said that while there has been cynicism about politics since the dawn of time, politicians are not all the same and lies are not acceptable.

To imply otherwise is to cheapen public life and slander the vast majority of elected politicians who do not knowingly mislead people, he added.

But those who do tarnish both politics and the reputation of Parliament, and this is a dangerous trend, he said.

"If lies become commonplace, truth ceases to exist. What and who, then, can we believe? The risk is... nothing and no one. And where are we then?" he quoted Sir Major as asking.

Mr Lee noted that while this is a Western view, Eastern philosophy in fact prizes norms and values even more highly, as it says that the right to govern flows from one's virtues and moral standing.

He cited the four social guidelines that hold a state together under Confucian thought: rituals, righteousness, probity and shame as a reaction to wrongdoing.

"What I personally find most disappointing in the WP narrative and in their response, including in this House today, is the complete absence of any admission that the three MPs have done anything wrong. There is no contrition," he said.

"Whether you take a Western or Eastern view, if lack of shame becomes the public norm, our political system will break down, progressively and irreversibly."

The result is public mistrust not only in individual leaders or political parties, but also in the whole political system, as has happened too often elsewhere, said Mr Lee.

Mr Lee cautioned that modern Singapore does not come born with a fail-safe mechanism, even as the founding fathers did their best to build strong institutions.

When the Barisan Sosialis vacated its seats in Parliament in 1966, which left the People's Action Party completely dominant as a result, founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew deliberately chose not to change the Constitution and turn Singapore into a one-party state, he noted.

"He knew that without the need to contest and win elections, the governing party would over time become complacent and flabby, and that would be disastrous for Singapore," said Mr Lee.

Instead, the founding leaders chose the more robust path of keeping politics contestable and building up institutions such as Parliament, the judiciary and the civil service so that Singapore would be more resilient, "not dependent on a few key people pulling all the levers, pushing all the buttons, making everything work".

It is therefore incumbent on each succeeding generation to protect and build upon this system, to uphold integrity and ensure the same rules apply equally to everyone, said Mr Lee.

"If we can do that - consistently, persistently, unflinchingly - then we have a shot at making things work. People can trust our leaders, our systems, and our institutions. Our democracy can mature, deepen and grow more resilient, as both the governed and the governing embrace and express the right norms and values," he said.

"But if we allow ourselves to slacken - loosen standards here, just a bit; overlook a lie there, just this time - the virtuous cycle will stutter and start to fail."

Honesty of opposition no longer inconsequential in a more contested landscape: PM Lee

By Hariz Baharudin, Assistant News Editor, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

With Singapore heading towards a more politically contested landscape, the competence and honesty of the opposition matter, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday (Feb 15) as he joined in the debate on the Committee of Privileges' report on the Raeesah Khan episode.

He stressed that with Singaporeans' lives and future at stake, everyone participating in the system must be held to the same standards.

"There can be no excuses, no double standards, and no pardoning of inexcusable behaviour, just because the offending party portrays itself as the underdog," he said.

Stressing that "integrity is the linchpin of democracy", PM Lee said the stakes of the debate on the committee's report might have been lower if the opposition were a negligible presence, as they were from 1966 until the 1980s.

Then, the People's Action Party (PAP) was overwhelmingly dominant, the public generally had low expectations of opposition parties and politicians, the tone of the country and its governance were set by the PAP, and the high standards that the PAP imposed on itself, he said.

"But with Singapore heading towards a more contested landscape, the competence and honesty of the opposition is no longer an inconsequential matter. The question of 'what are the right values and how should we uphold them?' becomes of fundamental importance for both the opposition and the governing party," PM Lee said.

"Every election henceforth would be about who wins the mandate to run this country. If the system is working properly, the governing party will be re-elected so long as it remains honest, competent and trusted," he said.

"If the governing party falls short, and Singaporeans come to deem an opposition party more honest and incorruptible, more competent, and more trustworthy, then the governing party should be voted out, and that opposition party should be voted in, to form the next government."

PM Lee said it cannot be assumed that the PAP will always continue in government. Nor can it be assumed that the WP, or some other opposition party, or any other opposition party, will always stay in the opposition.

"I do not know when, or how, there will be a change of governing party in Singapore one day. My job as party leader is to make sure the PAP governs well to the best of its ability, so that it retains the mandate of the people for as many elections as possible," he said.

"But my duty as the leader of the country is also to maximise the chances that whichever party wins future elections, it will uphold and be held to the same high standards of proper conduct and honesty as the PAP, so that our democratic system can continue to operate properly, whichever party is in charge, and would not go down the drain because a small island city-state like Singapore - the only one in the world like this - needs a strong, effective and good government, whoever leads it."

In his 40-minute speech, he described the Raeesah Khan episode as a betrayal of what the WP claimed it stood for.

He noted how Mr Pritam Singh had succeeded Mr Low Thia Khiang as secretary-general of the party.

"Mr Low served for a very long time - 30 years as an MP, 17 years as party leader. He sat opposite me, where Mr Singh now sits. Mr Low was a formidable political opponent, but he was a patriotic Singaporean. He set a different tone for the WP. He said he hoped the WP could help to build a First World Parliament for Singapore. He must be saddened that, instead, this is what his successor has done," PM Lee said.

"Because what has happened is a betrayal of what WP claimed it stood for."

But he also noted that Mr Low's public comments since the committee's report was released indicated Mr Low is confident the party can ride this out.

Said PM Lee: "And it need not be a setback for our democracy either, provided we hold Mr Singh and his colleagues accountable for dishonouring the standards of this House, and also for possibly breaking the law."

In his speech, he stressed how parliamentarians must stand for honesty, and that leaders must steadfastly maintain high standards and the right values.

They must "call out wrongs when wrongs are done, mete out punishment when punishment is due, preserve the sanctity of our institutions, never take the public trust for granted, and never allow lies, half-truths and falsehoods to become the accepted norm in politics".

PM Lee noted that Singaporeans wish to see more political contestation, and said he accepts this, as it is how every parliamentary democracy evolves.

It was this recognition that led him to make Mr Singh the Leader of the Opposition on election night after the 2020 General Election. "That is the way a responsible government can help a credible, responsible opposition to emerge, and contribute to the maturing of our political system," said PM Lee.

But such a leader does not have a blank cheque. PM Lee stressed that the role carries certain responsibilities such as setting the tone for opposition MPs, enforcing standards of conduct in his own party and, above all, maintaining his own integrity and keeping himself beyond reproach.

Significant issues arose during COP's proceedings and its recommendations are best way forward: PM Lee

By Hariz Baharudin, Assistant News Editor, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

Significant issues arose during a parliamentary committee's proceedings that looked into untruths said in the House, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, as he made the case for why its recommendations for fines and for referrals to the Public Prosecutor were the best way forward.

Speaking during the debate on the Committee of Privileges' report on the Raeesah Khan episode on Tuesday (Feb 15), he outlined two issues that emerged as the committee investigated her lies to Parliament in August and October last year.

First was whether Workers' Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, party vice-chairman Faisal Manap and chairman Sylvia Lim had instructed Ms Khan to continue with her lie in Parliament. "If they did, this is surely as serious or more serious a misconduct as Ms Khan speaking an untruth in Parliament," PM Lee said.

Parliament will need to deal with this, but only after a second, "even graver" matter has been cleared. This concerned whether, after having taken solemn oaths to tell the truth, the three WP leaders told untruths to the committee in order to cover up their instructions to Ms Khan to continue lying.

"Being untruthful under oath is no small matter. It means lying, despite solemnly affirming you will tell the truth. In this case, not once, not twice, but repeatedly, over many hours of extensive questioning, and on several days," he said.

He noted that the committee's assessment is that these untruths were not accidental or incidental errors, but deliberate, premeditated acts, done with a definite intent to mislead and to deceive. They are not just breaches of parliamentary privilege, but if proven in court, amount to perjury - lying under oath - which is a serious criminal offence.

"So, there are two distinct problems. One, whether the three MPs instructed Ms Khan to lie; and two, whether the three MPs themselves lied under oath. Both, if established, reflect very badly on the WP leaders, and in particular, on the Leader of the Opposition. Both issues, if not dealt with properly, will dishonour Parliament, and bring this august institution into disrepute."

In its report last Thursday, the committee had called for a fine of $35,000 for Ms Khan, who quit as an MP for Sengkang GRC after admitting to lying in Parliament. The committee also recommended that Mr Singh and Mr Faisal be referred to the Public Prosecutor for further investigations.

The committee said it was satisfied that Mr Singh was untruthful in giving evidence under oath, and that this may amount to perjury. It said Mr Faisal had refused to answer relevant questions put forth during its hearings, and to consider if criminal proceedings ought to be instituted.

The Prime Minister noted that the committee could have recommended to Parliament to administer a "token slap on the wrist".

"But that would show that we were taking a very serious matter rather lightly. Worse, by lowering our norms, we would be telling Singaporeans that it is really not so bad for elected leaders to lie."

Alternatively, the panel could have recommended that Parliament itself metes out an appropriately heavy penalty. While Parliament has the power to do this, and had the committee recommended it and Parliament decided on the penalty itself, the Opposition would "surely have cried foul, and accused the PAP of using its majority to persecute the Opposition", he said

"In fact, they are already insinuating this, as a smokescreen to obscure the real issue - that the WP had lied while under solemn oath."

What the committee recommends is the best way forward, he said. Since a criminal offence appears to have been committed, Parliament should refer the matter to the Public Prosecutor, who will consider the evidence afresh and "let the system work".

"If charges are filed, Mr Pritam Singh and also Mr Faisal Manap can defend themselves in court. The Court will have to be satisfied that their guilt has been established beyond reasonable doubt, and if they are innocent, they have nothing to fear."

He added: "If I were Mr Singh, I would vote in favour of both motions. Fine Ms Khan, because she is guilty beyond doubt.... And if Mr Singh maintains that he and his fellow WP leaders have done nothing wrong, he should also vote in favour of referring his own case, and that of Mr Faisal Manap, to the Public Prosecutor. Indeed, he should demand a court trial, in order to have the full opportunity to defend himself, vindicate his reputation, and clear his name."

Pro-WP voices on social media have taken quite a different tack, he added.

"Before the matter can be conclusively determined, if necessary in court, they are doing their best to confuse the issues and rouse sympathy. They are asking the public to clear the names of the three MPs, suggesting that referring their case to the Public Prosecutor is political persecution.

"What they are really saying is this: Don't look too carefully at what Mr Singh did, just remember who he is: He is the Opposition that you voted for; he is the Leader of the Opposition. By virtue of his position, he should not be referred to the Public Prosecutor; and any action against him must, by definition, be politically motivated; because who he is is more important than what he has done - even if he may have committed a crime."

He said some people may be taken in and sympathise with this story. These individuals could wonder why not let the matter just rest, and could feel that it would be easier for the Government to not pursue this matter against the three WP leaders further, given how Singapore has a full enough agenda.

But such is not the way of the People's Action Party (PAP) Government, PM Lee said. "As long as the PAP is the Government, we will not shy away from doing whatever is necessary to uphold the right norms in this House, and to imbue Singaporeans and their leaders with the values critical to sustain trust in the system, and critical to our success."

Parliament later voted on two motions, the first of which called on the House to agree with the committee's finding that Ms Khan was guilty of abusing parliamentary privilege by lying and its recommendation that she be fined $35,000.

The second motion called on Parliament to agree to refer Mr Singh as well as Mr Faisal to the Public Prosecutor. It also sought to defer any parliamentary sanctions on the duo and Ms Lim with regard to Ms Khan's lie, until the conclusion of any investigations and possible criminal proceedings against Mr Singh.

The two motions were passed, with Mr Singh and the WP MPs supporting part of the first motion, and voting against the second.

Sylvia Lim disputes COP findings, says her handwritten notes not damaging to Pritam

By Rei Kurohi, Tech Correspondent, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

Workers' Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim has disputed a parliamentary committee's interpretation of evidence she had submitted to it as "damaging" to her party leader.

In its report released on Feb 10, Parliament's Committee of Privileges (COP) said a set of handwritten notes provided by Ms Lim supported its finding that Leader of the Opposition and WP chief Pritam Singh had guided former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan to continue to maintain an untrue narrative she had shared in Parliament on Aug 3 last year.

"I take a different view," Ms Lim told Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 15).

"If read in the proper context, my evidence is not inconsistent and not damaging to Mr Singh. In fact, it is consistent with his evidence that he was telling her she had to tell the truth."

The notes, taken by Ms Lim during a meeting between herself, WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap, Mr Singh and Ms Khan, reflect that Mr Singh had said to Ms Khan: "Before Oct session, I met you + I told you it was your call. Did need to tell the truth in Parl occur to you?"

Ms Khan replies: "Yes but consumed with guilt + own experience. Thought it wouldn't come up."

Mr Singh then asks: "Can't lie right?", to which Ms Khan responds: "Yes."

Ms Lim said this exchange shows that Ms Khan had accepted that she could not lie and understood that she had to tell the truth.

She added that she was "baffled" by the committee's conclusion that she had recognised Mr Singh acted contrary to an MP's duty to tell the truth. She said her evidence did not support this finding, and that the committee did not quote her testimony accurately.

"I'd also stated, at the same time, that I could not imagine Mr Singh giving Ms Khan a choice, and I do not believe it. That puts a totally different complexion to the paragraph cited by the COP," said Ms Lim.

In her speech, Ms Lim also said she found the composition of the committee "unsatisfactory" as it was "overwhelmingly dominated by ruling party members" and included just one opposition WP MP - Mr Dennis Tan (Hougang) - out of eight members.

She suggested that the committee should include at least three members from opposition parties.

Ms Lim also asked why lawyers are not allowed to represent those who are summoned before the committee.

She also complained of the lengthy and "oppressive" process of questioning witnesses for long hours, noting that the process took nine hours in a single day for Mr Singh and six hours for Mr Faisal, while her own questioning took nearly three hours.

Leader of the House Indranee Rajah later responded to several of Ms Lim's points.

She said the committee had taken Ms Lim's interpretation of the notes into account and noted her position in its report.

Ms Indranee also said Ms Lim's questioning of the committee's composition was a "strategy to cast aspersions" on the committee.

"When we had to determine who would be the opposition representative on the Committee of Privileges, Mr Dennis Tan was nominated by Mr Singh, and he certainly did not complain at that time, or say that he should have more opposition members," she said.

"So it just really rather does sound as though, if you don't like the outcome of the Committee of Privileges, then you complain about how it is composed when it was never an issue before."

On the length of the questioning process, Ms Indranee said the time it takes to question a witness depends on whether they answer questions straightforwardly.

She also noted that lawyers are not allowed before the committee by default, but exceptions can be made by special application when there are good reasons to do so.

Added Ms Indranee: "Mr Singh is a lawyer, and so is Ms Lim. I don't think they really needed external counsel to be able to answer the questions that were put to them, which were not particularly difficult, well within their ability to understand and respond to."

Mr Faisal also spoke briefly in Parliament on Tuesday, stating that he will cooperate with investigations if he and Mr Singh are referred to the Public Prosecutor.

He also assured Aljunied GRC residents that services such as house visits and Meet-the-People Sessions will not be affected, and that he will continue to support the remaining Sengkang GRC MPs with issues related to the Malay-Muslim community.

WP candidate selection processes 'can be better', party will work to uphold standards expected of MPs: Pritam

By Justin Ong, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

The Workers' Party's (WP) candidate selection processes "can always be better" and it will strive to ensure it fields individuals who meet the standards expected of MPs, said Leader of the Opposition and party chief Pritam Singh.

He was speaking in Parliament on Tuesday (Feb 15) during a debate on two motions relating to a parliamentary committee's recommended sanctions on his former MP Raeesah Khan as well as himself and party vice-chairman Faisal Manap for their roles in repeated lies told by Ms Khan in the House last year.

The panel had called for Ms Khan to be fined $35,000, and for Mr Singh and Mr Faisal to be referred to the Public Prosecutor for possible criminal charges.

While Mr Singh rejected any conclusions that he had committed any offences, he said there were "absolutely" legitimate questions raised by Singaporeans about his party's candidate selection processes.

"As this House knows, and as the Government has also previously shared… no selection process is foolproof, and people can change," he noted.

"Even PAP (People's Action Party) MPs have been found guilty of criminal conduct or forced by their party to vacate their seats for other reasons. Potential PAP general election candidates have also been substituted at the 11th hour.

"The point is that even people who exhibit politically attractive character traits can turn out to be unsuitable," Mr Singh added.

"The Workers' Party also has had its fair share of the same experience."

He said it could be very difficult, if not impossible, to test a person's judgment in all circumstances prior to fielding them as political candidates.

"This is so even for the PAP, with its massive resources and far greater ease in finding willing candidates compared to opposition parties," Mr Singh said. "However, the Workers' Party does not use these realities as excuses.

"In the main, our candidate selection processes can always be better in spite of the extraordinary circumstances and the political culture of a one-party dominant state."

He said he would work with party members to fine-tune these processes as best they can, "taking into account the structural challenges" faced by the opposition.

WP leaders will also take into account demands that the party fields individuals who "do not lower the esteem of Parliament" and who "meet the standards expected" of MPs.

"I will endeavour to the best of my abilities to ensure that our candidates are rational, responsible and respectable," said Mr Singh. "And if any candidate selection decisions are wrong, I as secretary-general of the party take full responsibility."

Earlier, Mr Singh also acknowledged that he had given Ms Khan too much time to "settle herself" before "closing" with her the issue of her lies, which she first told on Aug 3 and repeated on Oct 4.

He said that between Aug 8, when Ms Khan came clean to WP leaders, and Sept 30, he should have been "proactive and checked where she was", in letting her family know that she had been a victim of sexual assault herself.

Ms Khan has explained that she lied because of her own personal trauma.

Mr Singh said: "That omission is mine alone… However, I will continue to be as sympathetic to anyone who shares such deeply personal details with me.

"My instinct, even today, would be to keep the information of the sexual assault to myself, or to a very small group of trusted individuals, given its highly personal and sensitive nature," he added.

"I would allow such a person space to deal with the matter. I still believe that it was right that the clarification was made in Parliament rather than out of it."

Gaps in Workers' Party evidence consistent with Raeesah Khan's version of events: Janil Puthucheary at COP report debate

By Goh Yan Han, Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

The gaps and omissions in the submission of evidence and documents by the Workers' Party (WP), taken with what has been provided to the Committee of Privileges (COP) during its hearings, are more consistent with former WP MP Raeesah Khan's account of events, said Dr Janil Puthucheary.

He was speaking during the debate on the committee's report following its probe into Ms Khan's lies in Parliament last year.

On Tuesday, Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh stated that he rejected the findings of the committee and that he intends to clear his name if referred to the Public Prosecutor. He added that the recommendations of the committee relied on one pillar - it believes Ms Khan's evidence that she had been told to take her lie to the grave.

Speaking right after Mr Singh, Dr Janil, who is Senior Minister of State for Communications and Information and Health, said it was Mr Singh and his party colleagues who engaged in political partisanship by choosing to obfuscate the matter and to deal with Ms Khan in the way that they did.

He said: "The reality is that in examining the evidence provided by him and his WP colleagues, MPs, cadre members and the back and forth, the committee came to conclusions on the basis of questions that they had, gaps in the logic, omissions in the submissions and the documents.

"The questions, gaps and omissions that he began his statement with are still present... These questions on the facts do go to the very heart of the matter as to whether or not Mr Singh has been honest in his dealings, including with Ms Khan."

Dr Janil said there was a question of why there were no steps taken to prepare Ms Khan to come clean and tell the truth from August - when she first told the lie in Parliament - till Oct 3, the day before she was pressed in Parliament on the matter by Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam, and when she lied again.

He said this gap, taken with the other statements and evidence, is consistent with Ms Khan's account that the truth could remain buried if the matter did not come up.

He added: "Mr Singh should explain clearly why no steps were taken if indeed it was important, and it remains important, for Workers' Party MPs to come clean, to tell the truth, to clarify an untruth told in Parliament as he claims."

Dr Janil said: "One untruth is a problem. The second time, worse. And why not at that point, ensure that the second lie in Parliament, the one which he, Ms (Sylvia) Lim and Mr Faisal (Manap) were aware of to be a lie, be clarified immediately?"

He asked: "The Workers' Party stands for honesty, integrity, accountability, where was all of that when Mr Singh was privy to a lie being told again, in Parliament?

"Mr Singh should come out clearly and tell Parliament what is his response to the specific findings (by) the Committee of Privileges. What is his explanation for the various inconsistencies that have occurred on the facts based on his own accord?"

Dr Janil also asked why there were no contemporaneous communication between Mr Singh, party chair Sylvia Lim and party vice-chair Faisal Manap on this topic.

He said: "Between me and my colleagues, just to settle what time we should meet, in order to go through our parliamentary questions, we would exchange various pages of e-mails.

"But this, for a most important matter, nothing - deafening silence. If it is, so it is hard to believe."

Dr Janil concluded by saying that he supported the motion that Parliament accepted the committee's recommendations: "To support the motion is to fight for a Singapore that is special, where politicians can be trusted and are expected to be honest, capable and upright.

"To support the motion is to fight for a Singapore where politicians do the right thing, not the politically convenient thing. To support the motion is to believe in our values and our integrity."

Speaking after all three WP leaders, Senior Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and National Development Sim Ann said that when faced with an honest ruling party with a proven track record, every opposition party can choose between two paths.

The first path is to deal only with the truth, point out where the incumbent has genuinely fallen short and propose workable alternatives, while the second path is to opportunistically and cynically distort the truth and inflame emotions, all for the sake of winning more support and votes.

A responsible opposition party should commit only to the first path and reject the second, said Ms Sim in Mandarin.

She said the WP leadership leaned towards the second path.

“They have demonstrated an opportunistic and cavalier attitude towards the truth, when it came to deciding whether Ms Khan should own up, and when and how it should be done,” said Ms Sim.

She said that the WP leaders’ “machinations” have hurt Ms Khan, the WP and its supporters, Parliament, victims of sexual assault and mental health patients as well as Singapore’s political ecosystem.

Condoning lies and being cavalier with the truth undermine the foundation of honesty and trust that our democracy is built on, she said.

She added: “To exploit the public’s sympathy for the underdog and paint the COP as being politically motivated, not only distracts the public from the core issue, but seeks to numb the public to lies and dishonesty.

“It is wrong to lie, and worse for an MP to do so. But if party leaders (including Leader of the Opposition) lie, then it must be looked into seriously. The behaviour of party leaders sets the tone for the values of the entire party, and is critical to the preservation of healthy dynamics within our political ecosystem.”

WP’s ‘strategy’ to avoid addressing key findings from COP during debate: Indranee Rajah

By Hariz Baharudin, Assistant News Editor, The Straits Times, 15 Feb 2022

Workers' Party leaders have not addressed key findings from Parliament's Committee of Privileges on why lies were told repeatedly in the House, said Leader of the House Indranee Rajah on Tuesday (Feb 15).

Wrapping up the debate on two motions she filed related to the report on an untruth spoken in the House by former WP MP Raeesah Khan, Ms Indranee said speeches by Leader of the Opposition and WP chief Pritam Singh, as well as those by party chairman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap, did not address the committee's key findings.

"I can understand tactically and strategically why you do that, because you've got this big report that says these really strong statements," she said.

"So it's probably a strategy - a good idea not to deal with those head-on but to pick small little things here and there and to hope that other people will look at that."

One such finding that the WP leaders did not address was why it took so long to have the truth told to Parliament regarding Ms Khan's lie, Ms Indranee said.

Ms Khan had on Aug 3 claimed to have accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where officers allegedly handled the matter insensitively and drove the victim to tears.

On Aug 8, Ms Khan had confessed to all three senior WP leaders. However, she repeated the untruth on Oct 4, before coming clean in Parliament on Nov 1.

"Why did it take so long to have the truth told to Parliament? You would think that from the time that is disclosed to them, the first reaction should be: 'Oh no, this is terrible, we better go back and clarify'," said Ms Indranee.

"But no, this matter dragged on for one month, two months, three months. And it only came about after the police had already put in their request for an interview and it became clear that this issue was not going to go away."

She was referring to the police asking Ms Khan for an interview about the case she cited.

Another "puzzling" issue that WP leaders did not address was why there was no direct instruction for the truth to be told, Ms Indranee said.

She said that despite all the evidence given by the opposition members, there was no clear instruction from them to Ms Khan to come clean.

"Instead, there's this passing of words... I mean how difficult is it to just say 'Raeesah, tell the truth'. How difficult is it to do that? Not very. Anybody should know how you can do that."

There is also the matter of whether or not Ms Khan's parents had been told about her lie, and about the fact that she was a sexual assault victim.

The WP leaders had told the committee during its hearings that they did not press Ms Khan to set the record straight when they learnt on Aug 8 that she had lied, because they wanted to give her time to speak to her parents.

"If that was so, how come nobody asked her whether she had told her parents? Why was no effort made to find out if she cleared that so that you could come back to Parliament and tell the truth?" said Ms Indranee.

These are pertinent questions that have not been answered, she added in rounding up the debate.

Parliament office responds to Sylvia Lim's remarks on 'oppressive' protocols for COP witnesses

Witnesses need not seek permission for toilet visits

By Nadine Chua, The Straits Times, 16 Feb 2022

Protocols are in place for witnesses appearing before Parliament committees to guard them against perceptions of undue influence, said the Office of the Clerk of Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 16).

It issued a statement responding to points made by Workers' Party (WP) chairman Sylvia Lim a day earlier, during the debate on the Committee of Privileges (COP) report on untruths told in Parliament by former WP MP Raeesah Khan.

Ms Lim had questioned aspects of the COP process, citing the committee's "strenuous questioning" of her fellow WP leaders Faisal Manap and Pritam Singh, which lasted six and nine hours respectively. Ms Lim was questioned for nearly three hours.

She said that before she was questioned, she "waited for two days in a guarded room and was denied the use of any communication devices".

"When I needed to visit the bathroom, I was accompanied by security. When I requested to use the disabled toilet to have more space, permission was sought. Doesn't all this border on oppressive? Our courts of law do not subject witnesses to such treatment," Ms Lim told the House on Tuesday.

In its reply, the Clerk's Office said that to protect witnesses against perceptions of undue influence, all witnesses were advised not to have communication devices and other electronic equipment with them until they have completed their testimonies.

They individually waited in assigned rooms where they could be physically reached when it was their turn, it added.

The witnesses were also provided with reading materials, meals and drinks for their comfort and convenience, and every witness had an attending Parliament officer who could immediately respond to any requests or queries, noted the Clerk's Office.

"At no time was permission needed for witnesses to use the toilet and they could make their own way there whenever they wanted," said the Clerk's Office, adding that on the occasion recounted by Ms Lim, she had specifically asked the Parliament officer with her for the nearest handicapped toilet, with more space and privacy, to freshen up.

"Before showing Ms Lim the way, the officer had verbally informed a supervisor on their movement in case the COP called upon Ms Lim while she was at the toilet.

"It was unfortunate that Ms Lim had misunderstood the officer's routine status update," said the Clerk's Office.

It noted that Ms Lim's speech in Parliament on Tuesday was the first time she had expressed her concerns regarding the matter, adding that any feedback made known to the COP by witnesses would have been immediately addressed.

"Nevertheless, we welcome this opportunity to affirm that all protocols are carried out to balance witnesses' well-being with the due process," said the Clerk's Office.

Up to Singaporeans to hold all parties, politicians to consistent high standards post 'Raeesah-gate': Observers

By Justin Ong and Hariz Baharudin, The Straits Times, 17 Feb 2022

A lying saga that put the Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh at peril of facing criminal charges has underlined the need for the electorate to hold their political parties and representatives alike to the same high standards and values, observers said on Wednesday (Feb 16).

They noted that the political stakes in Singapore have been shaken up in the wake of the House accepting a parliamentary panel's recommended sanctions on Mr Singh, who is the opposition Workers' Party (WP) chief, along with his vice-chairman Faisal Manap and former MP Raeesah Khan.

The analysts also reiterated the reputational harm done to the WP, but cautioned against prematurely judging any impact at the ballot box.

In Tuesday's four-hour debate around the conclusions and proposals of the Committee of Privileges set up to look into Ms Khan's repeated lies in Parliament last year, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong stressed the importance of integrity and warned that trust in the polity would be eroded if transgressions by MPs were allowed to pass.

"My duty as the leader of the country is also to maximise the chances that whichever party wins future elections, it will uphold and be held to the same high standards of proper conduct and honesty as the PAP (People's Action Party), so that our democratic system can continue to operate properly," he said.

National University of Singapore political scientist Elvin Ong said the gravity of these words was "most striking", and that PM Lee was explaining the need for the committee's recommendations against the WP.

At the same time, Singapore Management University law don Eugene Tan said PM Lee's speech, and others by PAP MPs also exhorting standards of conduct, would have the effect of the ruling party also being held to those high benchmarks.

"Voters will demand that they practise what they preach," said Associate Professor Tan. "(PM Lee) is suggesting that voters must demand no less of political parties of all stripes and politicians. Ultimately, how voters see the entire saga will determine the fate of Singapore politics and governance."

The committee had called for Ms Khan to be fined $35,000 for her untruths in Parliament in August and October last year, and for Mr Singh and Mr Faisal to be referred to the Public Prosecutor with a view to considering criminal proceedings.

The panel had determined that Mr Singh had lied while giving evidence under oath and that this could amount to perjury, and that Mr Faisal's refusal to answer questions could amount to contempt of Parliament. It also concluded that Ms Khan was acting under the guidance of WP leaders when she repeated her lie - an indictment that Mr Singh, Mr Faisal and party chairman Sylvia Lim have rejected.

Mr Singh on Tuesday rejected the notion that he had committed any offences, but said he would not object to being referred to the Public Prosecutor with a view to clearing his name.

During the debate, PM Lee also highlighted that as Singapore heads towards a more politically-contested landscape, the competence and honesty of the opposition matter; and that "right" norms of behaviour among MPs have to be guarded carefully - foremost being to tell the truth always and to do right by Singapore.

"One cannot disagree that any 'high standards' of honesty, trust, and integrity are vital to maintaining the effectiveness of Singapore's political system," said Assistant Professor Ong.

"What Singaporeans must ask themselves is whether they want to, whether they can, and whether they should demand that those high standards are applied consistently across all political parties and candidates. Singaporeans will have to figure out an answer for themselves."

Dr Mustafa Izzuddin, a senior international affairs analyst at Solaris Strategies Singapore, said the Singapore electorate was already doing so.

Tuesday's debate, he said, suggests "that the bar has been set high for political service in Singapore".

Prof Tan said PM Lee was also acknowledging the people's desire for more political diversity and contestation, while emphasising that it cannot be any opposition for opposition's sake. "It cannot be a race to the bottom where standards of public life and probity are concerned," he added. "In that regard, PM Lee was speaking more as the nation's leader rather than as party leader."

Dr Gillian Koh, deputy director of research at the Institute of Policy Studies, said a question arising out of PM Lee's speech and the entire debate was whether people would feel "cognitive dissonance" that the WP, long positioned as a check and balance on the PAP, "did not seem able to be an effective check on itself".

Reputational damage to WP

The debate in Parliament, and indeed the entire Raeesah Khan saga, has caused the WP reputational damage and hurt its standing, said the experts.

Commenting specifically on how the WP fared on Tuesday, Prof Tan said he expected the party to put up a stout defence but instead, the three party leaders "opted to make bald assertions and nitpick the report", rather than address the committee's core findings during the debate.

"Their silence on the gravamen of the charges was telling. On the whole, the WP's offering yesterday was poor, inchoate, and largely irrelevant," he added.

In her closing speech on Tuesday, Leader of the House Indranee Rajah said the WP had not addressed key findings from the Committee of Privileges on why lies were told repeatedly in the House. These included why it took so long for the truth to be told, and why there was no instruction to Ms Khan to come clean.

Prof Tan zoomed in on one specific moment during Mr Singh's speech, where the WP chief "gratuitously stated" the alleged specific sexual assault against Ms Khan, even though she had shared that detail in confidence.

"Mr Singh showed no compunction to humiliate Ms Khan further, having also made the same disclosure when he appeared before the COP," said Prof Tan.

But it is still too soon to tell if the lies, hearings and parliamentary debates will affect how Singaporeans decide to vote, as some experts noted that the election is still some time away. The last general election was held in July 2020, and Singapore must hold its next polls by November 2025.

Voters frequently have to weigh "a whole basket of issues" when they head to the ballot box to make their decision, said Prof Ong, who noted that these include economic issues, concerns about quality of life, policies proposed by the various parties and the qualities of political candidates.

"While it may be true that the credibility of the Workers' Party is diminished as a result of this saga in the short term, it may be the case that voters are willing to set it aside because they are concerned about some other issues in the long term," he added.

That the six other WP MPs did not speak during Tuesday's debate reflects how they have closed ranks with their leaders, noted Prof Tan, who pointed out that only time will tell how serious the damage to the party is.

Dr Koh anticipates the WP will continue its "retail politics" strategy of working the ground and having deep door-to-door conversations with constituents. The party has adopted this strategy for years, including under former chief Low Thia Khiang, and she expects the party to intensify manpower in its ground engagements.

Dr Mustafa said the standard of political opposition has steadily risen and will continue to do so despite the entire episode. He noted two milestones: the WP clinching its first GRC in Aljunied at GE 2011, and the title of Leader of the Opposition being given to Mr Singh after GE 2020.

"The rising stock of the opposition, albeit hitting a road bump, will continue as there is a clamouring for credible alternative voices in Parliament, especially among the younger generation of voters," he said.

Assistant Professor Walid Jumblatt Abdullah, from Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Social Sciences, said in a Facebook post on Wednesday: "What matters most is how middle-ground voters feel. Whether they believe that WP's credibility has been hit, or whether they feel this is injustice against an opposition which already does not have the same power as the incumbents."

Such voters make up 30 per cent to 35 per cent of the electorate and generally lean towards the PAP, but would be willing to vote against it if they think the circumstances require such a decision, he said.

Former PAP MP Inderjit Singh said the debate in Parliament has created some doubts in people about the WP leadership, but he does not see the core supporters on either side changing their minds about their level of support for either the PAP or WP.

"The middle ground will make their final decision based on the outcome of the prosecution decision," he added.

A defining moment for the future of contested politics

The opposition must raise the bar to meet high standards of integrity. And the PAP must raise the bar to behave better and act fairly as the dominant party in a contested system.

By Chua Mui Hoong, Associate Editor, The Straits Times, 18 Feb 2022

A lie told by a rookie opposition MP in Parliament has morphed over the past six months into a tale involving her party leaders, a parliamentary committee hearing spanning weeks, and, on Tuesday, an intense four-hour debate that saw the Prime Minister step in to deliver a rare, and vitally important, speech.

Ms Raeesah Khan has since apologised for her lie uttered on Aug 3 and for repeating it on Oct 4, when queried. She had made up an anecdote about accompanying a sexual assault victim to the police station, where officers had been insensitive. In fact, she had heard the account at a support group meeting, and had not received permission to share the story.

On Nov 1, she confessed in Parliament that she had lied, and resigned from the Workers' Party (WP) and from her seat in Sengkang GRC on Nov 30.

A complaint about her untruth was made and a Committee of Privileges (COP) was convened to investigate. On Feb 10, the COP released its final report recommending that Ms Khan be fined $35,000 for her lies. It also wanted to refer two WP leaders to the Public Prosecutor to ascertain if their own conduct before the committee warranted criminal prosecution: perjury or lying under oath in WP secretary-general Pritam Singh's case; or contempt of Parliament for refusing to answer relevant questions in the case of WP vice-chair Faisal Manap. Parliament accepted the recommendations this week.

The COP report essentially concluded that while Ms Khan was responsible for her lies, party leaders had also guided her to cover up those lies.

Mr Singh has repeatedly denied asking her to continue lying in Parliament. More than 30 hours of video recordings of the proceedings, and a series of reports totalling 1,181 pages, including transcripts and screenshots of text messages, were released over the weeks to a public at times riveted, at times satiated, by the deluge.

Some Singaporeans think the issue is a political ploy to distract attention from an expected impending rise in the goods and services tax. Others lament the waste of extensive public resources to chase down the details of whether the WP leadership encouraged, or guided, Ms Khan in continuing to lie to Parliament.

Beyond the specific circumstances of this case - she said, he said, they said - the ongoing saga is most interesting as a case study of what to expect as politics gets more contested.

The politics of contestation

Singapore politics is at an inflexion point.

With rising political contestation, the conduct of both the incumbent People's Action Party (PAP) and of the main opposition party WP will shape the future of Singapore democracy.

Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong's 40-minute speech in Parliament on Tuesday was a rallying call to both voters and opposition members to uphold high standards of integrity in politics established since the founding generation.

Singaporean voters are used to giving a mental discount to opposition candidates and parties, viewing them as underdogs operating under a system with rules set by the PAP.

But such double standards are not healthy for a maturing democracy. As PM Lee said on Tuesday, "with Singapore heading towards a more contested landscape, the competence and honesty of the opposition is no longer an inconsequential matter", but is of "fundamental importance".

He said: "With our lives and future at stake, everyone participating in the system must be held to the same standards."

PM Lee clearly set out expectations for MPs: preserve the sanctity of Parliament; uphold values of integrity and honesty; and when mistakes are made, "own up and take responsibility - do not hide, dodge, or spin further lies, to obfuscate and cover up the original fib".

His speech spelt out a vision of politics based on shared common values of integrity and incorruptibility.

For Singapore voters, this means demanding that opposition MPs, candidates and parties be held to at least the same high standards as those demanded of the PAP.

Mr Singh as WP leader has already said its candidate selection can be better, even as he denied personal wrongdoing, and added that he would fight to clear his name if prosecuted.

But voters will demand more than these of the WP.

Questions are already being asked about WP's internal party processes. Two issues have emerged: Why party leaders gave Ms Khan several months to set the record straight on her lies, and why a disciplinary panel on Ms Khan's behaviour was made up of precisely the three leaders who had been told about Ms Khan's lies since Aug 8?

To be taken seriously as a party, the WP will need to institute party processes that can withstand scrutiny.

Conduct expected of a dominant party

As politics gets more contested, no less important than raising the bar for the opposition is raising the bar for the PAP's behaviour as the dominant party.

Voters will demand that the PAP behaves as its ideals require. Observers will be reminded of past incidents when PAP leaders seemed to give themselves an easy pass over mistakes.

For example, as Mr Singh has highlighted to the COP - and as many others outside the House have noted - the Government took months to correct a statement made in Parliament by Dr Vivian Balakrishnan, minister in charge of the Smart Nation drive, that TraceTogether data would be used only for contact tracing purposes.

He had said this in June 2020, but found out in October that the Criminal Procedure Code allows TraceTogether data to be used for police investigations. This fact was made known publicly only in a January 2021 parliamentary reply.

Dr Balakrishnan eventually took responsibility for and apologised for his mistake. Importantly, the Government did its best to make good on the promise. It passed legislation in February 2021, under a certificate of urgency, limiting the use of TraceTogether data to investigations for specific, serious crimes such as murder and terrorism. And so trust, broken, could be mended.

Even if it rectified the situation eventually, the fact remains that government leaders allowed a false promise to the public to remain on the record, uncorrected, for months.

While no one is suggesting lies were involved, similar questions now being asked of WP leaders can be levelled at PAP leaders then. When did party leaders realise a false promise of data privacy had been made (even if unintentionally)? Why the delay in clarifying the statement?

But because Parliament is PAP-dominated, the issue was not blown up, and the political agenda moved on. But such murmurings inevitably arise again when the PAP, rightly, insists on holding everyone to the highest standards.

Beyond expecting PAP leaders to behave as high-mindedly as their rhetoric requires, voters will also want to see the PAP behave in a fairer and more equitable manner to its political opponents than it has tended to in the past.

While the hurly-burly nature of politics means political parties will do what they can, legally, to entrench their power and curb opponents, some of the PAP's tactics from the 1970s to the 1990s have been described as "knuckleduster" actions - from defamation suits to putting opposition constituencies last in the queue for state-funded upgrading works, among two oft-cited examples.

Those moves had lasting impact, putting many off the idea of engaging in politics, and avoiding partisan activity of any stripe.

Thankfully, to be fair to PM Lee and the current batch of leaders, these tactics are much less used today.

In life, as in politics, it is important, even as we take stock realistically of the past, to look forward and to press for positive change. In this respect, I cheered PM Lee's speech for elaborating on the values and democratic ideals expected of all in politics, especially when he made an explicit commitment to principled behaviour.

Notably, he acknowledged the desire for more contestation and pledged to do his best as leader of Singapore to help the opposition become more responsible: "I know Singaporeans want to see more political contestation, and I accept that. I expect that this is the way Singapore will go, in the longer term. That is how every parliamentary democracy evolves.

"And it was precisely because I recognised this, that on election night in 2020, after the WP won a second GRC in Sengkang, I offered to make Mr Singh the Leader of the Opposition, and equip him with the resources and support to play his role. That is the way a responsible government can help a credible, responsible opposition to emerge, and contribute to the maturing of our political system."

Conversely, what does a responsible government look like in an age of contested politics? What must it do, to make sure the system is in place for a peaceful change in regime when the time comes?

This is what PM Lee said on this: "I do not know when, or how, there will be a change of governing party in Singapore one day. My job as party leader is to make sure the PAP governs well to the best of its ability, so that it retains the mandate of the people for as many elections as possible.

"But my duty as the leader of the country is also to maximise the chances that whichever party wins future elections, it will uphold and be held to the same high standards of proper conduct and honesty as the PAP, so that our democratic system can continue to operate properly, whichever party is in charge, and would not go down the drain."

Mr Lee differentiated between his job as party leader and his duty as the leader of the country. I am glad for his choice of words: one is a "job"; the other is a higher "duty".

Likewise, opposition leaders have to answer the call to a higher duty than as party leader. As Leader of the Opposition, for example, Mr Singh's first duty is to his country, not his party.

Going forward, leaders of political parties, including the PAP, must operate more like country leaders and less like party leaders. For the party in government, this means taking steps to make sure Singapore's politics, policies and processes are based on the right values, and conducive for an ethical, peaceful transition of power should that day arrive.

Good norms being created

As a perpetual optimist in Singapore, I am hopeful that in recent political events, and in Raeesah-gate and its fallout, we are seeing the creation of good norms in the new politics of contestation.

Making Mr Singh Leader of the Opposition with an office, and higher allowance to hire staff, was a good norm. It boded well for Singapore's political future.

Appointing a COP to investigate Ms Khan's lies was a good norm to uphold the integrity of Parliament.

The COP could have meted out penalties to the WP leaders it said had lied under oath, or acted in contempt of Parliament by refusing to answer questions.

COP members have explained that it chose to refer the WP leaders to the Public Prosecutor to avoid accusations of political bias, as seven of the eight members of the COP are from the PAP; and so that the WP leaders can defend themselves in court if the matter comes to a trial.

The explanation is reasonable, and indeed a court trial may be able to shed more light on whether WP leaders egged Ms Khan to perpetuate her lies.

Yet, questions have also been raised about whether the COP process too could be improved.

Both Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Singh said some of their evidence had not been taken into consideration or recorded, although their statements were rebutted by COP members, who argued that all available evidence was considered and factored in the report that ran beyond a thousand pages.

The COP's long-drawn hearing has also struck some as being more adversarial than might be expected from a fact-finding parliamentary committee. Widely shared scenes of the committee en masse on benches set up high, with the witness seated on a lower level, alone, with no lawyer - looked inquisitorial. Some witnesses, especially Mr Singh, were subject to a questioning style that was more akin to hostile cross-examination by a legal adversary.

The whole point of having the COP process on the public record is to let Singaporeans see first-hand the workings of parliamentary democracy in action. The aim is to raise confidence in our political system. If the COP process has raised questions and is seen by some as partisan, then it should be overhauled.

In fact, I hope PM Lee - or his successor - as country leader sees it as his duty to review the political landscape to strengthen systems and processes that stand in the way of a credible, responsible opposition emerging.

Creating a more bipartisan COP that has fair, robust processes in place, might be a start.

As PM Lee has said, this episode can be a plus for democracy if it results in MPs being held accountable for their words and actions in Parliament.

I would say that the episode can strengthen Singapore democracy, if the party in power also takes a hard, honest look at itself, reviews political processes it has inherited, and removes or improves those which impede the growth of a responsible opposition.

If there is one takeaway from this episode, it is the need for external checks and balances. The WP won votes in the 2020 General Election on its platform of being a check on the Government. But the party that wanted to deny a "blank cheque" to the PAP (in the words of WP MP for Sengkang GRC Jamus Lim), also needs checking. It cannot expect a "blank cheque" simply for being the underdog.

Parliamentary processes like the COP are deemed to benefit from calling in the Public Prosecutor and the public justice system. The legislature, in other words, needs to be checked by the judiciary.

As politics gets more contested, the PAP is doing the right thing by insisting on high standards of integrity for the opposition and of acting as a check on the growth of unruly opposition.

But this cuts both ways. Both a dominant PAP and opposition parties must be held to the same high standards that voters, and the country, deserve.

*  Parliament: Who guards the guards, asks Shanmugam in rebutting WP MP's call for ombudsman

By Tham Yuen-C, Senior Political Correspondent, The Straits Times, 4 Mar 2022

Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam on Thursday (March 3) rebutted the call by Workers' Party (WP) MP Leon Perera (Aljunied GRC) for an ombudsman, saying that setting up an independent agency to check on every aspect of government would replicate many parts of law enforcement agencies.

Singapore's system already provides many processes to check on wrongdoing including by the Government, whether it is corruption or foreign interference, said the minister. These include complaint systems, independent investigations by the police with outside persons sitting on panels, as well as judicial review, he added during the debate on his ministry's budget on Thursday.

Furthermore, having an ombudsman without any oversight from the Government would also raise the question: Who then deals with misconduct by the ombudsman or the officers within that office?

"Who guards the guards?" asked Mr Shanmugam.

"Take a hypothetical situation. Say you have an organisation where the top leaders engage in wrongdoing, or for example, say they set up a disciplinary committee to cover up what they did rather than actually investigate. You can ask 'quis custodiet ipsos custodes?'" he said, using the Latin phrase for the question he posed.

"And Mr Perera, I suppose if he was part of any such organisation, would be the first one to make such a point," the minister added.

Mr Perera had said that an ombudsman would be able to check on senior ministers, citing the risks of foreign influence with geopolitical tensions ratcheting.

He said: "Ministers, including the Home Affairs Minister and Prime Minister himself, would be extremely high-value targets for foreign interference, particularly given what some might say is Singapore's significant role in Asean."

"An office of an ombudsman would create investigative resources behind a legitimate institutional check that would be seen to be legitimate. In the current climate, there is more of a need for this," he added, saying this would be similar to the practice in New Zealand.

Mr Shanmugam, referring to Mr Perera's previous parliamentary speeches on the topic, said the WP MP had a penchant for recommending that outside commissions and an ombudsman look into all matters, from caning to foreign interference.

But he questioned the efficacy of this, saying the ombudsman would have to replicate many parts of existing law enforcement agencies, including the intelligence agencies, so that it can investigate such complaints on its own.

"I would suggest it doesn't make much sense. Because how do you replicate, and at what cost, an entire investigative mechanism outside the Government?"

Mr Shanmugam added: "You've got to then set up an entire huge structure at the taxpayers' expense to investigate this. Rather than having a proper legal process, including a complaint system, an independent investigation set up, say by the police, with some outside people sitting on it, or judicial review."

As it stands, law enforcement agencies can already go to the President - an independent person who can give directions and authorise checks, said Mr Shanmugam.

"We institutionalised it such that the CPIB (Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau) can go straight to the Prime Minister. But where the Prime Minister himself is the possible subject of investigations, or if the Prime Minister doesn't want to do something, the CPIB can go to the President. Not many countries have done this," he said.

Mr Shanmugam said there are systems in place and a variety of people who can lodge complaints and launch investigations into wrongdoing, including the Auditor-General's Office, the Attorney-General, the CPIB and the police.

And civil servants are obliged to go to a higher authority if they think their minister is doing wrong, "and if they believe that the higher authority is not acting properly, they can take it up all the way", he added.

These civil servants are, in turn, protected through the structure of the Public Service Commission, which appoints senior public officers, and the minister said such appointments "cannot be interfered with willy-nilly by the Government".

"I would say, look at all that first, and look at the ground situation before we start talking about replicating more and more institutions outside," he added.

On Mr Perera's reference to New Zealand, Mr Shanmugam said the situation there was different, noting that political parties are allowed to accept donations from locally registered companies, even if they are foreign-owned. He cited former National Party MP Todd McClay, whose party received a NZ$150,000 (S$138,000) donation from a company owned by Chinese businessman Lang Lin, after the two men had met.

Mr Shanmugam cited recent articles from The Guardian and Financial Times to make the point that New Zealand's international reputation for political integrity had taken a beating recently, with the country being described as "at the heart" of global money laundering.

"I would ask Members to perhaps do their research before they cite various countries and their institutions as models," he added.

In response, Mr Perera asked why many countries have an ombudsman if it was such a bad idea.

Unlike law enforcment institutions which sit on the organisation chart within the executive government and are “within that command and control hierarchy”, an ombudsman would report to Parliament, added Mr Perera.

“So when it investigates alleged abuses, it is seen to be an investigation coming from a different part of the Government...to do that has advantages in terms of vertical accountability that is felt by the society, and in terms of the strength and solidarity of our polity,” he said.

He also said that the practical issues of duplication can be resolved by having the ombudsman office direct the investigations while using resources from other agencies.

Replying, Mr Shanmugam reiterated that Singapore’s system already allows for such a process, where enforcement agencies, like the CPIB, can direct investigations and report directly to the President who is not part of the executive.

This is similar to Mr Perera’s suggestion, he added, saying: “I have explained how that is so. So I don’t understand what the argument is. Maybe Mr Perera hasn’t understood the constitutional structure and how the CPIB can go directly to the President.”

** 29 April 2022

***  4 Sep 2022

Daniel Goh says Workers' Party disciplinary panel formed to look into his Facebook posts on Raeesah Khan

By Jean Iau, The Straits Times, 4 Sep 2022

The Workers' Party (WP) has convened a disciplinary committee to look into the Facebook posts of cadre member Daniel Goh regarding former WP MP Raeesah Khan.

On Saturday, the former non-constituency MP said on Facebook that he had declined to be interviewed by the committee, which had asked to hear the rationale behind his public statements.

Associate Professor Goh said the committee alleged his posts had revealed the inner workings of the parliamentary caucus of the WP MPs, allowed political opponents to have an inside understanding of how the WP operates and cast a cloud over the character of the leadership of the party.

Ms Khan resigned from the party and as an MP for Sengkang GRC last November after she admitted to lying in Parliament.

Prof Goh then posed several questions regarding her resignation and said that it had left "many inconvenient questions" for the WP leadership unanswered.

In a separate post, he said the party's leadership must take some responsibility for allowing the transgression to persist.

He also related his own experience in which speeches were shared, reviewed and debated among MPs, and if a mistake was made, it was rectified immediately.

In Prof Goh's post on Saturday, he said that his earlier posts were questions based on public information as he had stepped down from his party posts in 2020.

He also said he had asked the questions as a concerned citizen and as a party member who believes that "public accountability and integrity are non-negotiable values demanded of our political leaders".

"In issues of grave public interest, questions must be asked about the inner workings of any organisation. If asking those questions carries a price, I am willing to pay it, and count it inexpensive," wrote Prof Goh, the associate provost of undergraduate education at the National University of Singapore.

He added that he has no intention of participating in party matters, including the Cadre Members' Conference in a few months' time to elect the party leaders.

Prof Goh urged the party leaders to make public the grounds of their decision to convene the committee and explain any disciplinary sanctions they would impose on him.

He also questioned what the committee had meant when it said his posts had cast a cloud over the character of the leadership of the WP, as it suggested to him that his questions, rather than the leaders' actions and responses, had caused people to lose their trust in the WP leaders.

When asked by The Straits Times on Sunday if he was planning to remain a member of the party, Prof Goh said: "I have no intention of resigning."

When contacted by ST, the WP declined to comment on the disciplinary committee and the sanctions it may impose on Prof Goh.

He stepped down from his party posts prior to the general election in 2020 owing to his health. He was a non-constituency member of Parliament between 2016 and 2020.

*  Two key aides of ex-Workers’ Party MP Raeesah Khan resign from party

By Ng Wei Kai, The Straits Times, 9 Nov 2022

Two Workers’ Party (WP) members closely linked to former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan have resigned from the opposition party.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Mr Yudhishthra Nathan and Ms Loh Peiying said they put in their resignation papers to WP chief Pritam Singh but had stopped their involvement in party volunteer work since December 2021.

The Facebook post said the two of them were members only in name for the past 11 months and did not actively contribute to the party.

Mr Nathan and Ms Loh gave evidence at a Parliamentary Committee of Privileges (COP) hearing convened in December 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s conduct.

Ms Khan admitted to lying in Parliament about a sexual assault case in August 2021. She resigned from the WP a few months later in November.

Ms Loh was Ms Khan’s secretarial assistant and a party member for 10 years who earlier served as Mr Singh’s secretarial assistant. Mr Nathan was a WP volunteer since 2013, and joined the party in 2016, rising to council member of the WP youth wing.

In the Facebook post, Mr Nathan and Ms Loh – both WP cadre members – said the last 11 months have not been easy and that they had reached a point where they both wanted to move on.

It said: “We want to return to being regular citizens, free to express ourselves as individuals, without others questioning our loyalties and allegiances.

“We have both been with the party for nine years or more, and have been cadres since 2016. In these years, we have loved the party dearly, and contributed actively in many teams and departments, both grassroots and strategic.”

Cadre members are part of the party’s inner circle, with the power to elect its leadership.

In their evidence to the COP, Mr Nathan and Ms Loh appeared to contradict the version of events offered by WP leaders, including Mr Singh, that pinned the blame solely on Ms Khan for lying in Parliament.

The pair said Ms Khan was not the sole actor in allowing her lie in Parliament to go uncorrected.

They also said WP leaders had asked Ms Khan to “take the information to the grave”. Party leaders, the two members said, were also unfair to Ms Khan by not being transparent about their own role in the incident.

The COP released its full findings in February, and recommended that Ms Khan be fined $35,000 for lying in Parliament multiple times and abusing her parliamentary privilege.

It also referred Mr Singh, who is WP secretary-general, and WP vice-chairman Faisal Manap to the police for investigations.

In the Facebook post, Mr Nathan and Ms Loh said they hold memories of their time in WP with fondness.

“We have made lifelong friends in each other, and with others along the way. There are many good people in the rank and file of the Workers’ Party who have dedicated their lives towards building a better Singapore.

“We hope they remember to keep the welfare of Singaporeans at the centre of all that they do.”

**  Former WP NCMP Daniel Goh expelled from party, says his retirement from politics ‘is complete’

By Jean Iau, The Straits Times, 2 Jun 2023

Former Workers’ Party (WP) Non-Constituency MP (NCMP) Daniel Goh has been expelled from the party over Facebook posts he made about the way its leadership handled former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan’s resignation.

In a Facebook post on Thursday night, Associate Professor Goh, who was a WP cadre member, posted a redacted picture of a letter from the party dated May 26 confirming his expulsion with immediate effect. His retirement from politics “is complete”, he said.

“Since the central executive committee requested nicely that I not disclose the correspondence due to information about the ‘inner workings’ of the party, I won’t. Though, ironically, that is the very reason given for the expulsion,” he wrote.

“Got (to) update my CV to say I was expelled from WP for calling out the leadership,” added Prof Goh.

He said he will focus on serving Singapore through his work at the National University of Singapore, where he is the associate provost of undergraduate education and teaches at the Department of Sociology and Anthropology.

The WP declined to comment on Prof Goh’s expulsion.

In September 2022, Prof Goh said on Facebook that the WP leadership had convened a disciplinary committee to look into his posts about Ms Khan, who resigned from the WP and as an MP for Sengkang GRC in November 2021 after she admitted to lying in Parliament.

He had said in a Facebook post before her resignation that the party’s leadership must take some responsibility for allowing Ms Khan’s transgression to persist.

He also related his own experience in which speeches were shared, reviewed and debated among MPs, and if a mistake was made, it was rectified immediately.

In a December 2021 post, he posed several questions regarding Ms Khan’s resignation and said that it had left “many inconvenient questions” for the WP leadership unanswered.

Prof Goh said in his September 2022 post that he had declined to be interviewed by the disciplinary committee, which had asked to hear the rationale behind his public statements.

He added that the committee said his posts had revealed the inner workings of the parliamentary caucus of the WP MPs, allowed political opponents to have an inside understanding of how the WP operates, and cast a cloud over the character of the leadership of the party.

On Thursday, Prof Goh confirmed that his expulsion was in relation to these Facebook posts.

He told The Straits Times he was not shocked at all by the sacking. He added: “I won’t say happy, it is more a sense of relief, a closure to a very disappointing experience.”

Asked why he chose not to resign earlier, he said: “It is my responsibility to stay with the party I have contributed to for so many years to build up.”

Prof Goh said he does not intend to join other political parties.

He started volunteering with the WP in the 2011 General Election and joined as a party member in 2013.

He contested in East Coast GRC in the 2015 General Election, and served as an NCMP between 2016 and 2020 after the WP’s Lee Li Lian, who lost the Punggol East ward to Mr Charles Chong from the People’s Action Party, declined to take up the seat.

Political observers had at one point regarded him and his then fellow NCMPs Leon Perera and Dennis Tan as possible successors to former WP chief Low Thia Khiang, though Prof Goh publicly ruled himself out of the running.

Prof Goh stepped down from his party posts prior to the general election in 2020, citing health reasons.

Related

Raeesah-Gate: Parliament votes to refer Workers' Party leaders Pritam Singh, Faisal Manap to Public Prosecutor as recommended by the Committee of Privileges

Committee of Privileges recommends Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh face further probe, $35,000 fine for Raeesah Khan over lies in Parliament

Report by the Committee of Privileges -Complaint against Ms Raeesah Khan for Untruth Spoken in Parliament

Workers' Party MP Raeesah Khan admits to lying in Parliament about allegation that police mishandled rape case; Sengkang MP Raeesah resigns on 30 Nov 2021

Mental Health: Misperceptions, stereotypes can negatively affect people who have mental illness

Raeesah Khan lying in Parliament: Workers' Party attempts at cover-up backfires spectacularly