SINGAPORE – Workers’ Party (WP) leader Pritam Singh has opted to testify in court, after Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan ruled on Nov 5 that there was reason to answer his questions. two charges.

The judge’s decision came after Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy submitted written submissions seeking to dismiss the two charges against the opposition leader for his alleged lies to the Committee on Privileges (COP) of Parliament.

The prosecution concluded its case on October 24 after calling four witnesses to the stand, including former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan.

On November 5, the judge found that the prosecution’s case was sufficiently strong on both counts. Singh was therefore asked to present his defense either by speaking out or choosing to remain silent. He chose to testify in court.

The prosecution alleges that Singh lied twice at the COP convened in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s lies to Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on August 3, 2021, told Parliament how she accompanied a victim of sexual assault to a police station, where the victim was allegedly treated insensitively. She reiterated this claim in the House on October 4 of the same year, before admitting her lie on November 1, 2021.

Here are the key points made by the defense and prosecution, along with the judge’s remarks on their arguments:

1. On the defense’s claim that the accusations are “linguistic acrobatics” and “defective”

Arguing that the prosecution had failed to present a case against Singh, Mr Jumabhoy said each charge as currently drafted is “defective” in law because it fails to identify the specific question posed by the prosecution. COP nor the specific response given in response. by Singh which would be false.

In particular, Singh did not use the words Ms Khan claimed to have said to him after he lied to Parliament in August 2021, which were to “take him to the grave” or to “continue the narrative”, said the lawyer.

Mr Jumabhoy added that Singh also did not tell Ms Khan that he would not judge her for continuing his lie. “And for good reason: Mrs. Khan and the truth make strange bedfellows. It would defy all credibility to rely on her as a witness to the truth.

He also argued that “linguistic acrobatics” are inherent in the two charges Singh disputes, while pointing out that the prosecution had relied on an amalgamation of his responses at the COP to claim he gave false testimony .

The merging of Singh’s responses to the COP can also be interpreted in several ways, Jumabhoy added. This cannot therefore be relied upon to demonstrate a clear or deliberate intention on the part of Singh to give a false response to the COP, he stressed.

In response, the prosecution argued that the defense’s assertion that the charges “fail from the start” is surprising and patently erroneous.

In its written submissions, the prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Ang Cheng Hock, argued that “the defense’s position cannot be serious” that the charges are vague as to whether the accused actually provided responses to the COP.

Indeed, the relevant extracts from the minutes annexed to the charges clearly set out the questions asked by the COP and the corresponding answers given by Singh to the COP, it indicates.

The prosecution also argued that Singh repeatedly lied during his testimony at the COP and used different words on different occasions to convey the same response.

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

In setting aside the defence’s “no liability” application, Justice Tan said the merged approach taken by the prosecution was “judicious and consistent” with the requirements of the law.

He also agreed with the prosecution that it is only convenient and fair for Singh to have to answer a single charge with a single false answer, rather than having multiple charges brought against the accused.

2. On the defense’s assertion that the evidence for the first charge is “inherently incredible”

The defense also argued that there was no evidence to answer for the first charge because “the evidence is inherently so incredible that no reasonable person would accept it as true.”

Mr Jumabhoy said Ms Khan had given three different accounts of what happened on August 8, 2021 at Singh’s home when she first told the WP leader, party president Sylvia Lim and to Vice President Faisal Manap that she had lied to Parliament on August 3 of the same year. .

The first was Ms Khan’s account at the COP on December 2, 2021, that the reaction of the WP leaders was that “if I were not to be in a hurry, then the best thing to do would be to withhold the account that I started in August.

The second was her testimony during her third appearance before the COP on December 22, 2021, where she made it clear that Singh used the words “take him to the grave” during the August 8 meeting.

The third was her testimony in court about Singh’s response to her admission that she had lied to Parliament. She said Singh had listened, was perhaps “a little upset about the situation” and talked about bringing it before the COP. He then said that “it would probably be something we should take to the grave.”

After listing them, Mr Jumabhoy said there was a clear difference between retaining the narrative if not insisted upon and taking the lie to the grave.

The suggestion of taking the lie to the grave is fundamentally different from intentionally withholding the truth, he added.

Mr Jumabhoy also pointed to the text message Ms Khan sent to former WP executives Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan after the August 8 meeting ended – which contained the phrase “they agreed that the best thing to do to do is to transmit the information seriously” – must be “treated with the greatest circumspection”.

This is given that it was sent by a person who proved to be quite capable of lying to Singh and his friends via text message, he said.

In response, the prosecution said Ms Khan’s testimony about the August 8 meeting “remains clear and credible” despite the defense’s attempts to sow doubt.

He said the defense ignored the fact that, during cross-examination, Ms Khan disagreed that the two accounts were different and explained that during the August 8 conversation with executives of the WP, they assumed the lie wouldn’t come out, so they would take it to the grave.

“Ms Khan never stated, either at the COP or in this court, that she was advised at the August 8 meeting to tell the truth if the issue was raised,” the prosecution said.

The prosecution added that Ms Khan’s evidence is that she and the WP leaders simply did not discuss the possibility at the meeting – the first time she had received advice on what he what to do in case of pressure, it was during another meeting on October 3, 2021, when Singh told her he would not judge her for continuing the story.

The prosecution also called it “perplexing” that the defense argued that the phrase “take (him) to the grave” could mean different things, and that it is unreliable to rely on Ms. Khan’s interpretation of the phrase without referring to what Singh said. meant by the sentence.

He said the defense had previously claimed that Singh did not say such a phrase during the August 8 meeting, but now appears to have taken a less categorical stance on that assertion.

“If the accused’s position is that he meant something else by that expression, then it is up to him to state that in the witness box,” he added.

The prosecution said there was no reason for Ms Khan to have lied to Ms Loh and Mr Nathan about the “entombment” issue, as she had already made it clear to executives and party leaders his lie in Parliament.

Additionally, Ms Khan would have known that any lies “would be exposed almost immediately” since she knew that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were meeting Singh on August 10, 2021.

This demonstrates that Ms Khan’s text message is reliable evidence of what happened at the August 8 meeting, he said.

Justice Tan said the court was satisfied with the requirements to call Singh to testify on the interpretation of the WP leader’s responses to the COP and the reasonable inferences that can be drawn from them, including as to whether his allegedly false response had was made deliberately. .

3. The judge must “keep an open mind” before the trial ends, the prosecution urged.

The prosecution, in its written submissions, urged the judge to “keep an open mind” about the accuracy of each witness’s testimony before the end of the trial.

Indeed, the task of evaluating the evidence should only be carried out at the end of the trial, and not at the current stage of the proceedings, the prosecution said.

For the defense to be called at the end of the presentation of the prosecution’s case, it suffices to establish that there is “evidence, not intrinsically incredible”, which satisfies each of the elements of the accusations, underlined the prosecution, citing the case. law.

This is different from the ultimate question at the end of the trial, which is whether each element of the offense has been established “beyond a reasonable doubt”, the prosecution stressed.

Meanwhile, the court should only ignore evidence presented by the prosecution when it “has been so discredited upon cross-examination or is so manifestly unreliable that no reasonable court could convict it.” safely,” he said.

Justice Tan, in explaining his decision, said the threshold the prosecution must reach at the end of its case “must be distinguished from the ultimate question at the end of the trial”.

“If credibility is simply undermined, there remains a case to answer,” the judge added.

After setting them out, Justice Tan said: “On balance, for both counts, I am of the view that the conditions required for the accused to present his defense to both counts were fulfilled.

Singh was then asked to stand to answer whether he wished to testify under oath and be cross-examined by the prosecution, or to remain silent and allow the court to draw conclusions from his refusal to testify.

His response was: “Your Honor, I understood what you said. I chose to testify in court.