Former WP cadre Loh Pei Ying and WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh arriving at the State Courts on Oct 18. - ST
SINGAPORE: 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.
The court had left off on Oct 17 after she 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 Khan’s untruth in Parliament.
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 the key points that came up as Loh, who used to serve as Khan’s secretarial assistant, wrapped up her evidence:
1. Loh had ‘90%’ intention for Khan to tell the truth
When testifying before the COP in 2021, Loh had said there was on Oct 12, 2021, a consensus among Singh, WP cadre Yudhishthra 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 Loh and Nathan had wanted Khan to continue lying.
One of the messages read to court showed that on Oct 7, 2021 – when police sent an e-mail requesting to interview Khan – Loh had suggested that the ground they should probably take was to say 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 Nathan’s position was that revealing the truth to Parliament and Singapore would be “extremely damaging”, thus he suggested that Khan continue to lie by misdirecting the police query.
Upon questioning by Jumabhoy, Loh disagreed that the messages were a “clear” indication that Nathan and her had intended for 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 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.
Jumabhoy had asked her to ascribe a percentage to her intention.
He then asked if Singh had rejected 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. Loh disagreed and said: “No. I thought it too.”
2. Loh thought Khan was naive, self-centred and ‘lao hong’
Loh was later cross-examined on the points she presented on Nov 25, 2021, before the WP disciplinary panel (DP) convened to look into Khan’s lying controversy.
Jumabhoy asked if she had told the DP that Ms Khan was “naive and stupid”, to which 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 Jumabhoy was referring to Lim’s notes for this meeting when questioning Ms Loh on this.
Pressed on the matter, Loh said the points may have come up in the discussion, but since the words “naive” and “stupid” had come up in Lim’s notes, she would have been describing Nathan and her as “naive and stupid” as well.
Jumabhoy then asked if she had also described Khan as “self-centred” and “lao hong”, a Hokkien phrase. Did the dialect phrase mean that Khan was weak and would crumble with criticism, he asked.
Loh agreed that 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 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.”
Jumabhoy said he was told that in reference to biscuits, “lao hong” means that they are stale. “You are saying Khan is stale,” he added.
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.
Jumabhoy said these opinions do not show a vote of confidence for Khan, yet Loh did not think Khan should be expelled from the party.
Loh said she was entitled to give her “honest, unfiltered candid opinion” at the DP, and that she had wanted Khan to remain in the party so that WP could better control her.
Otherwise, “there’s very little control the party will have over the narrative that will be put forth to the COP”, she said.
Jumabhoy followed up by asking if Loh was concerned that Singh would accuse Nathan and her of conspiring with 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 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 Khan’s resignation on Nov 30, 2021, Loh texted Nathan a day later, saying: “I can’t believe our worst nightmare happened.”
Presenting Loh with this message, Jumabhoy asked if her worst nightmare was effectively that Khan could say whatever she wanted to now. He also asked if her concern was about what Khan would say about Nathan and her.
Loh disagreed with both statements.
3. Loh deleted many messages after giving evidence to COP
Loh had deleted many text messages after giving evidence before the COP, the court heard.
Jumabhoy was asking her about her text correspondence with 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 Loh and Nathan.
This case is not about whether the duo had given false evidence before the COP, Ang said. He said the question at hand is the nature of certain conversations between Singh and Khan specifically on Aug 8 and Oct 3 in 2021.
Jumabhoy replied that the line of questioning is relevant as the witnesses appeared to have aligned their evidence.
Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan subsequently allowed the questions while urging Jumabhoy to be clear about his questions.
The court then heard that 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 chair Tan Chuan-Jin to call Nathan in between the Dec 2, 2021 hearing to give him a heads up about his need to testify as well,
But the defence put it to her that, during the phone call, she had gone further than that, despite being made clear to her that what she told the COP should not be discussed.
She agreed, recalling to have told 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, had given her a wrong piece of information which made her think that Singh had lied. The information was an article which erroneously stated that Singh knew of 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 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 to court was one that she sent to a chat group with Khan and Mike Lim, who served as Khan’s legislative assistant from November 2020, on Dec 26, 2021.
In it, Loh had said: “Please don’t tell them we met before COP. This one really, really cannot say.”
The court earlier heard that Khan, Nathan, Lim and her had met on Dec 1 that year, just before they were supposed to give evidence.
Asked at this point if Loh had wanted Khan’s version to align with the testimony she was about to give, she said no.
She also disagreed that in her communications with Nathan on Dec 2 that year, she had told him to tell her version of the truth. - The Straits Times/ANN
