quote
Pritam Singh's post FB 17.2.2025
[Media Statement: 17 February 2025] - Mandarin translation below
I refer to the verdict of Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan delivered at the State Courts today in the matter of PP v Pritam Singh.
I have uploaded my Defence submissions on the Leader of the Opposition’s website (link at the end) so the public can read the arguments my lawyers, Mr Andre Jumabhoy and Mr Aristotle Eng made to the Court, laying out my side of the story.
As both submissions exceed more than 100 pages in total, here is a short introduction and separately, a TL;DR version of the submissions.
The People’s Action Party (PAP)-dominated Committee of Privileges (COP) of the Parliament of Singapore said in its report that Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishtra Nathan, Raeesah Khan’s associates,
were “honest”, “credible”, and truthful in their testimonies to the COP.
Although not submitted as a legal issue per se to the court since judge Luke Tan confirmed that he was not going to comment on the COP proceedings, the trial process exposed the unsatisfactory, lackadaisical and incomprehensive procedure employed at the COP to collect evidence from Loh Pei Ying and Yudhisht Nathan, even leaving them unsupervised and on their own to redact WhatsApp chats that they were required to submit to the COP as evidence.
Defence’s Submissions: TL;DR
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At trial, it was revealed that
Loh Pei Ying and Yudhish, conspired to hide from Parliament evidence of how they persuaded Ms Khan to continue lying in Parliament, a fact that was also made clear to the police during investigations.
The COP concluded that Mr Singh was not truthful in his testimony before it.
Mr Singh was charged with two offences.
The same Mr. Singh, who from the moment he had sight of the anecdote that Ms Khan intended to deliver in Parliament on 3 August 2021, called on her to substantiate the anecdote.
The same Mr Singh who, even after the sitting of Parliament on 3 August had ended, and in the days that followed, pressed Ms Khan to provide the necessary details to substantiate her anecdote.
The same Mr Singh who, after Ms Khan recovered from shingles in September, and before the next sitting of Parliament on 4 October 2021, sent an email impressing upon the importance of being able to back up and defend what an MP says in Parliament.
The same Mr. Singh who, on 3 October 2021, went to Ms Khan’s house to warn her that the Government may bring up the issue again. Throughout all this, Mr Singh has been consistently clear in his position.
The trial process uncovered a number of facts that were not revealed to the COP. The defence relied on this for the court to actively consider the totality of the evidence before it. What are these facts?
1. It was Mr Singh who emphatically rejected the pleas from Ms Khan’s friends, Loh Pei Ying and Yudhish, to cover up Raeesah’s lie with another one. Mr Singh never hid the fact that it was Ms Khan’s duty to take responsibility and ownership of the issue, and that it was her decision to continue to lie, a fact that he made clear to Ms Khan in a contemporaneous WhatsApp message on 23 Nov 2021, and from which she did not demur.
2. Mr Singh did not seek to control and prepare how Ms Khan responded to questions from Parliament following her admission to Parliament on 1 Nov 2021 that she lied, because he had nothing to hide.
3. Mr Singh did not get together with Ms Khan, Loh Pei Ying and Yudhish, before the COP hearings in any attempt to align his account to the COP, because he had nothing to align.
4. Mr Singh did not give in to threats before the COP hearing from Loh Pei Ying because there was nothing that could threaten him. Rather, his advice to her was to tell the truth.
5. Unlike Loh Pei Ying, Mr Singh did not seek to delete his messages to the COP because there was nothing for him to hide about his conduct.
In the test of who is telling the truth, actions speak louder than words.
On the one hand, you have Ms Khan, who showed no hesitation in staring down Mr. Shanmugam and lying directly to his face, but who the Prosecution portray as some sort of naïve “27-28 year old rookie MP”. You also have her co-conspirators, Loh Pei Ying and Yudhish attempting to cover up evidence which raises significant concern: what exactly was in those messages that they deleted immediately after the sitting on 4 October 2021? What other messages did they delete before, during and after the COP hearing? What were they trying to hide? Whose interests were they protecting?
Most crucially, despite the many opportunities presented to them, none of them accused Mr Singh of telling Ms Khan to lie until they got to the COP.
I have instructed my legal team to file a notice of appeal and to look into the written judgment in closer detail.
Link:
https://leaderoftheopposition.sg/pp...Y35jnW056v3xmjh2mA_aem_KbGOrE038AqXqOYtk0goRw
https://leaderoftheopposition.sg/pp...sX678-JmEUNOP_afxQ_aem_AyaRR0BJoUhK8km2Mdl8Mw
