Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh arriving at the State Courts on Oct 14, 2024. He is fighting two charges of lying to a parliamentary committee. - ST PHOTO: GAVIN FOO
SINGAPORE (The Straits Times/ANN): After he found out that 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.
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.
Former WP member Raeesah Khan arriving at the State Courts on Oct 14. In 2021, she admitted to lying in Parliament about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. - ST PHOTO: KELVIN CHNG
In his opening statement, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock said Singh, 48, had lied to the committee about what he wanted Ms Khan to do about her Aug 3, 2021, untruth in Parliament when he discussed the matter with her on Aug 8 and Oct 3 that year.
The prosecution will call former WP chief Low Thia Khiang and Ms Khan, among others, as witnesses for the case, he added.
Mr Ang said that in contrast 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,” he 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.
Contrary to what he told the committee, Singh gave Ms Khan the impression that she could choose to continue with her narrative and that he would nor 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 added.
When Singh, WP chairwoman Sylvia 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.
The trial, which is 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.
As the opening statement was being delivered, Singh was sitting a row behind his lawyers, with his father Amarjit Singh, a former district judge, seated beside him.
Notable figures in the gallery include 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 as no preparatory steps were taken then, compared with after an Oct 11, 2021, meeting that involved Mr Low.
Mr Ang said this meeting was where Mr Low was informed that Ms Khan’s anecdote in Parliament was untrue. Mr Low advised Singh and Ms Khan at the meeting that the untruth be clarified in Parliament as soon as possible.
Subsequently, Ms Khan underwent “careful preparations” in the lead up to her eventual clarification to Parliament on Nov 1, 2021, noted the prosecution.
This included at least five drafts, if not more, of the clarification prepared by Ms Khan and reviewed by Singh between Oct 13 and 31.
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.
Recounting the events after Ms Khan’s untruth to Parliament, Mr Ang noted that there was no discussion of the matter between Singh and Ms Khan from Aug 8 to Oct 3 in 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 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.
He 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 Straits Times/ANN
