| Daily Update of the Pritam Singh Trial – November 8, 2024 |  |
15:33
Verdict on Feb 17, 2025, at the earliest
Court is adjourned till Feb 17, 2025, when Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan is expected to hand down the verdict in the case against Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh.
The prosecution and defence have until Jan 13, 2025, to file their closing submissions.
15:09
Re-examination by defence concludes
Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy (above) wraps up his brief re-examination of Pritam Singh, touching on when the Workers’ Party (WP) central executive committee learnt of party leaders’ early knowledge of Ms Raeesah Khan’s lie; whether Singh thought the matter would be dropped on Aug 3, 2021; and the separation of powers, which Singh has said is why Ms Khan did not immediately speak to the police.
Ms Khan’s departure from the party is also discussed. Forming the disciplinary panel was former WP chief Low Thia Khiang’s idea, says Singh.
The re-examination ends and Singh leaves the stand. No other defence witnesses are called.
15:04
Pritam says Raeesah could not simply clarify her lie on Oct 5 Parliament sitting
The trial resumes after lunch, with defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy starting his re-examination of Pritam Singh.
Mr Jumabhoy brings up the prosecution’s Nov 7 questioning of Singh on why Ms Khan could not come clean during the Oct 5, 2021, Parliament sitting, a day after she had doubled down on her lie.
Singh told Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock that since Ms Khan continued her lie, a clarification would not have sufficed, and she would have had to make a personal statement.
Answering his lawyer, Singh says that on Oct 4, it would have been a “simple matter” of telling the Parliament that the anecdote she shared on Aug 3 was untrue.
But she could not simply make such a clarification on Oct 5, after she had doubled down on her lie. Singh thought she would have to give a personal statement, including the reason that led her to lie.
12:49
Prosecution wraps up cross-examination, unclear if defence will call more witnesses
Rounding off the cross-examination, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock puts the prosecution’s case – line by line – to Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh.
Singh answers “agree” or “disagree” to each statement.
The judge asks if the defence will be calling more witnesses.
Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy says: “I will cross that bridge after lunch.”
Court is adjourned.
12:49
Pritam Singh says he and Low Thia Khiang could have recalled the Oct 11, 2021, meeting differently
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock asks Pritam Singh whether he had told Mr Low Thia Khiang on Oct 11, 2021, about Ms Raeesah Khan’s confession to key party leaders on Aug 8, 2021, just days after she first told the lie in Parliament.
DAG Ang asks: “So you told Mr Low?”
Singh says: “In my police statement, that’s what I said.”
DAG Ang says: “I can read as well, Mr Singh. Did you tell Mr Low on Oct 11?”
Singh answers: “I believe I would have, but I already mentioned I don’t recall all the details of the conversation.”
Singh says he, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Low “speak openly about everything”, and “any anything that (Mr Low) would have asked, we would have answered him”.
DAG Ang points out that Mr Low had testified on Oct 23 that he came to know about Ms Khan’s early confession to party leaders only in August 2023.
“Which is the truth?” DAG Ang asks.
Singh says: “I would stick to what I said in my statement.”
DAG Ang asks: “So you did tell him?”
Singh says: “Yes, as per my statement, that would be my recollection.”
DAG Ang asks: “By the way, so if you’re right, then Mr Low is lying, right?”
Singh says: “No, I wouldn’t say that, it could be a question of memories.”
DAG Ang asks: “Would it be fair for me to say that you are doubling down on your position that you did tell Mr Low?”
Singh says: “I would be doubling down on my best recollection and my belief, yes.”
Singh also emphasises the nature of his relationship with Mr Low, saying that neither one of them lied, and again attributed the discrepancy to a “question of memories”.
“So in other words, Mr Low must be either lying or has a very bad memory as to what you told him, correct?” DAG Ang asks Singh, to which he disagrees.
DAG Ang then suggests that Singh withheld that information from Mr Low because he knew how the former WP chief would react, to which Singh also disagrees.
12:39
Who’s lying? You or Low Thia Khiang?: Prosecution
Pritam Singh is grilled on what was discussed during the Oct 11, 2021, meeting with Workers’ Party chairwoman Sylvia Lim and former party chief Low Thia Khiang.
Citing Singh’s police statement recorded on Jan 16, 2023, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock says Singh told the police that he had informed Mr Low during the meeting that Ms Raeesah Khan would be clarifying the details of her anecdote in Parliament.
DAG Ang says, however, that Mr Low testified otherwise in court on Oct 23, 2024.
Asked about the Oct 11 meeting, Mr Low had said that no one told him of any plans for Ms Khan to make a clarification in Parliament.
Singh then says: “As I mentioned, that may be Mr Low’s position. But my position is what I said in the (police) statement.”
He adds that he cannot remember the exact details of the meeting, but he and Ms Lim had already taken a position by then that Ms Khan would have to come clean in Parliament.
DAG Ang then asks who is lying.
“Okay, so he’s lying, or you’re lying, isn’t it?” DAG Ang says.
Singh says that is something the prosecution will have to draw a conclusion on.
“Yes, I will,” DAG Ang says.
Singh replies: “I’m sure you will.”
12:05
Prosecution highlights inconsistencies between Pritam’s police statement and Low Thia Khiang’s testimony
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock quizzes Pritam Singh over an Oct 11, 2021, meeting between him, Workers’ Party (WP) chair Sylvia Lim and former WP chief Low Thia Khiang (above).
DAG Ang says in one of Singh’s police statements, he had said that regarding Ms Raeesah Khan’s lie in Parliament, “Mr Low did not give us any advice”, as they all knew that the only thing left to do was for Ms Khan to clarify the untruth in Parliament.
In Mr Low’s short testimony in court on Oct 23, 2024, he said he was not informed that Singh and Ms Lim had told Ms Khan to clarify her lie in Parliament.
DAG Ang says: “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 says: “Yes, that was his perspective, but we already had that perspective even before we spoke to him.”
DAG Ang presses further.
“I will put it to you, Mr Singh, that Mr Low is telling the truth,” he says, adding that Singh did not ask Ms Khan to clarify her false anecdote in Parliament.
Singh disagrees.
DAG Ang then suggests that it was Mr Low who said Ms Khan must clarify her untruth in Parliament, after hearing suggestions from Singh and Ms Lim that the party could just hold a press conference for Ms Khan’s apology, followed by her expulsion.
Singh agrees that Mr Low had formed that position, but disagrees with DAG Ang on how he had come to form the opinion.
11:53
Pritam drafted clarification for Raeesah for ‘simple matter’ on Aug 3, 2021, but didn’t do so before Oct 4 Parliament sitting: Prosecution
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock asks Pritam Singh if he had drafted a clarification for Ms Raeesah Khan in the Oct 3, 2021, meeting at Ms Khan’s house, the day before she doubled down on her lie in Parliament.
Singh agrees that he did not, and says: “I didn’t think it would be difficult to clarify.”
DAG Ang then points out that Singh had on Aug 3, 2021, redrafted Ms Raeesah Khan’s clarification note, after then Minister of State for Home Affairs Desmond Tan asked for more details about her false anecdote.
DAG Ang says: “Even for a simple matter like Aug 3, you had to do the clarification for her, correct?” Singh agrees.
“But on Oct 3, going into Oct 4, you didn’t do any kind of clarification for her.
“And she also, for some inexplicable reason based on your evidence, didn’t ask, ‘Do you want me to prepare a clarification, and do you want to look at it?’”
Singh replies: “Correct.”
Here is the screenshot of the exchange between Singh and Ms Khan on Aug 3, 2021:
11:52
Pritam told police he held off clarifying Raeesah Khan’s second lie because of her sexual assault
In Pritam Singh’s police statement on May 18, 2023, the Workers’ Party chief had said he did not immediately clarify Ms Raeesah Khan’s lies in October 2021 because he “was not sure if Raeesah had informed her family about being sexually assaulted”.
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock, reading from the statement, quotes Singh: “This is why I did not clarify immediately, to save her family from any embarrassment.”
DAG Ang asks why did Singh say this when he has repeatedly testified that after Ms Khan doubled down on her lie on Oct 4, 2021, whether or not she had spoken to her parents about her assault was no longer a condition to her confessing in Parliament.
Singh says: “That’s no longer relevant (only) at the end of Oct 4, after she has completed what she has done in Parliament.”
DAG Ang says: “So after she repeated the lie, one must wait for a few hours before the condition becomes irrelevant?”
DAG Ang asks: “So how many hours? How many minutes?”
He says it is quite plain that what Singh told the court about Ms Khan and her parents becoming irrelevant the moment she lied again is inconsistent with what Singh had told the police.
Singh disagrees.
11:38
Pritam says he didn’t lie to COP about knowing that Loh Pei Ying and Raeesah would testify, admits he forgot some details
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock asks Pritam Singh when he became aware that Ms Loh Pei Ying and Ms Raeesah Khan would give evidence to the Committee of Privileges (COP).
Singh had initially said in court on Nov 7, 2024, that he knew on Nov 29, 2021, that Ms Loh was going to give evidence before the COP.
But DAG Ang points out that Singh had told the COP that he did not know this.
“It was in this context that you lied to the COP, and you told the COP that you did not know Ms Loh was coming to give evidence, correct?” he asks.
Singh disagrees. “I did not lie to them,” he says.
DAG Ang says Singh had told the court that actually he did know that on Nov 29, 2021, that Ms Loh was going to give evidence before the COP.
Singh says yes, adding: “Later. As I came to find out later.”
DAG Ang asks for his final position.
Singh replies: “I think the position is quite clear.”
He adds that he did not recall the series of messages at the time, noting that he was into his seventh or eighth hour before the COP.
“I have no difficulty with sharing with this court that it was an omission on my part,” he says.
DAG Ang: “Okay, so you knew that (Ms Loh) was coming to give evidence on Nov 29?”
Singh: “After the fact, yes.”
DAG Ang: “After what fact?”
Singh: “After the COP.”
DAG Ang: “I’m asking you as at Nov 29.”
Singh: “You see, Mr Ang, I have answered it already.”
DAG Ang: “Please answer my question.”
Sounding exasperated, Singh refers to a message he received on Nov 29 telling him that Ms Loh had been contacted by Parliament.
“As you can see from the police statement, I had received the message. I am not going to deny that,” Singh says.
11:36
Pritam describes himself as a ‘primary participant’ in Raeesah Khan’s lie
While explaining what he knew and did not know on Nov 29, 2021, Pritam Singh describes him as a “primary participant” in Ms Raeesah Khan’s lie.
He says what he knew on Nov 29, 2021, was that Workers’ Party cadres Loh Pei Ying and Mike Lim had both received an e-mail from the Committee of Privileges. But he did not know that this means they will be called as witnesses.
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock then points out that Singh himself had received an e-mail from the COP by then, and should therefore know what the e-mails are about.
Singh says he did receive an e-mail on Nov 6, 2021 asking him to given evidence before the COP. But he adds that he did not know what was in the email to Ms Loh and Mr Lim, and did not think they would be asked to give evidence “because they are not primary participants in Ms Khan’s lie”.
As DAG Ang begins to ask another question, Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan cuts in and asks: “Sorry, what do you mean by ‘primary participant’?”
Singh replies: “I did not know why they would be called because they had nothing to do with the lie.”
Judge Tan asks: “You received an e-mail, so are you a primary participant?”
Singh says: “Yes, certainly.”
Judge Tan then asks Singh why he thought of himself as a primary participant, but not Ms Loh and Mr Lim.
Singh says: “Because I’ve been called up as a witness.”
11:22
Inconsistent accounts of when Pritam knew Loh Pei Ying had been called to the COP: Prosecution
Leader of Opposition Pritam Singh on Nov 7 testified that he had given a wrong answer to the Committee of Privileges (COP) about when he found out former Workers’ Party cadre Loh Pei Ying had been called up by the COP.
He had said at the COP hearing on Dec 10, 2021, that on Nov 29, 2021, he had not known Ms Loh would be giving evidence to the committee.
But he told the court on Nov 7 that he had later realised that was a mistake, and he had already known by Nov 29, 2021 about Ms Loh being contacted by the COP as WP member Mike Lim texted him about it on that day.
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock asks when Singh realised he had given an inaccurate answer to the COP.
Singh says he cannot recall, but adds that he realised only after he reviewed the COP materials, before his police interviews began in December 2022.
DAG Ang then suggests that Singh would have known Ms Loh had been contacted by the COP before the police interview, yet in his statement to the police on April 4, 2023, he had said that he did not think Ms Loh would be called He says this is inconsistent with what Singh said in court.
However, Singh says that any answer would be “speculative, as he cannot recall when he realised he had made a mistake in his COP testimony.
He adds that his answer to the court and the police were given in different contexts. He says when he was interviewed by the police, he was referring to the fact that he knew by Nov 29, 2021 that Ms Loh had received an e-mail from the COP. But at that point, he did not know what this e-mail was about and if Ms Loh would be called up by the COP to testify.
He also says that what he said on Nov 7 was “with the benefit of hindsight”, and adds that DAG Ang is mischaracterising what he told the court.
DAG Ang says: “I think it’s quite clear what you told the court. You specifically told the court that there was one inaccuracy… It was that on Nov 29, you told the COP that as of that day, you did not know that Pei Ying was going to give evidence. And now you’re telling us that it’s not an inaccuracy, that indeed you did not know?”
Singh says no.
10:50
Pritam is asked if Oct 12, 2021, meeting with WP cadres was about ‘suppressing the untruth’
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock highlights the inconsistencies between Pritam Singh’s police statement in January 2023 and his court testimony yesterday regarding his Oct 12, 2021, meeting with then Workers’ Party cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan.
On Nov 7, DAG Ang had brought up this meeting and asked Singh whether the two then cadres “were not trying to suppress the untruth”, to which Singh disagreed.
DAG Ang then presented an alternative interpretation, suggesting that instead of hiding the untruth, Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were trying to see how Ms Raeesah Khan could “articulate the untruth in her personal statement”, to which Singh disagreed a second time.
Singh makes clear that he believes that both Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were suppressing the “untruth”, following DAG Ang’s last question about the meeting.
DAG Ang then points out the contradiction in Singh’s answers to the police, where he said they were not suppressing the untruth.
He says: “So, when I asked you in court whether you agree that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were trying to suppress the untruth… you repeatedly said that they were trying to suppress the untruth, but in your police statement, you told the police that they were not trying to suppress the untruth.”
DAG Ang adds: “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 says that he did not lie anywhere, and that there is no contradiction as the questions posed to him were different.
10:27
Pritam returns to courtroom as judge gives go-ahead for use of police statements
Lawyers for both sides cross swords over the use of five statements Pritam Singh gave to the police from December 2022 in cross-examination.
Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy says the prosecution unfairly mischaracterised one of Singh’s answers to the police yesterday.
Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan appears unconvinced. He says if Singh disagrees with the framing of his answers, he can say so – “The point of the matter is, it is the witness who answers, he decides how he wants to answer or what he wants to answer – that’s his prerogative”.
After some more wrangling, Judge Tan says to Mr Jumabhoy: “I will invite you to object, then we can examine each and every one (of the questions).”
He adds, if any questions are inaccurate and unfair, he will make a ruling.
Mr Jumabhoy says: “I would have objected yesterday, but I had no sight of the statement.”
Singh is called back to the courtroom for cross-examination to continue.
09:54
Pritam leaves courtroom before police statements are discussed
The 13th day of the trial starts with Pritam Singh leaving the courtroom before he has even spoken a word, as Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock and defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy discuss Singh’s police statements.
At the end of the hearing on Nov 7, DAG Ang requested to enter five police statements given by Singh into evidence.
Judge Tan asks Mr Jumabhoy if there is anything he would like to raise regarding the statements before DAG Ang resumes his cross-examination of Singh.
Mr Jumabhoy says yes, and starts to reference a Dec 28, 2022, statement before Judge Tan interjects. “Before you go on, should Mr Singh be present when this is being discussed?” he asks.
DAG Ang says: “I think, just for prudence, maybe he can step outside.”
Singh leaves the courtroom.
09:12
Pritam arrives in court
Good morning. Workers’ Party secretary-general Pritam Singh arrives at the State Courts at around 9am today.
His trial will resume soon. The prosecution is expected to continue with its cross-examination of Singh over his alleged lies at the Committee of Privileges hearings in December 2021.
