Judge rules Pritam Singh has a case to answer: Highlights from Day 10 of WP chief’s trial

SINGAPORE – Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh chose to testify before the court after Deputy Chief District Judge Luke Tan ruled he had a case to answer to both charges on November 5.

The judge’s decision came after Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy filed written submissions seeking to drop two charges against the Leader of the Opposition for allegedly lying to Parliament’s Committee of Privileges (COP).

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

On November 5, the judge ruled that the prosecution’s case was strong enough on both charges. Singh was therefore asked to present his defense either by taking the stand or choosing to remain silent. He chose to testify before the court.

The prosecution’s claim is that Singh lied twice to the COP, which met in November 2021 to investigate Ms Khan’s lie in Parliament.

Ms Khan had told Parliament on 3 August 2021 how she accompanied the sexual assault victim to the police station, where the victim was allegedly treated insensitively. He repeated his claim before Parliament on October 4 of the same year, before admitting his lie on November 1, 2021.

Here are the important points put forward by the defense and prosecution and the judge’s views on their defense:

1. On the defense’s claim that the accusations are ‘linguistic acrobatics’ and ‘flawed’

Arguing that the prosecution had not made a case against Singh, Mr Jumabhoy said each charge currently drafted was “flawed” from a legal perspective because it did not identify the specific question asked by the COP and the specific answer given in response. Allegedly false by Singh.

Specifically, the lawyer said Singh was not using it to “take him to his grave” or “continue the narrative” that he claimed Ms Khan told him after he lied in Parliament in August 2021.

Mr Jumabhoy added that Singh also did not tell Ms Khan that he would not prosecute her for continuing to lie. “And for a very good reason: Mrs. Khan and the truth make strange bedfellows. Relying on him as a witness to the truth destroys credibility.”

He also alleged that “linguistic acrobatics” were inherent in the two charges that Singh contested, noting that the prosecution relied on the concatenation of his answers to the COP in claiming that he had given false evidence.

Mr Jumabhoy added that the concatenation of Singh’s responses to the COP could also be interpreted in various ways. He therefore submitted that Singh could not be relied upon to have shown a clear or deliberate intention to give the wrong answer to the COP.

In response, the prosecution argued that the defense’s claim that the charges “failed from the start” was surprising and clearly misunderstood.

The prosecution, led by Deputy Public Prosecutor Ang Cheng Hock, argued in written submissions that “the defence’s conduct cannot be serious” as the charges are unclear as to whether the defendant actually made any response to the COP.

It was stated that the relevant portions of the evidence minutes annexed to the charges clearly set out the questions asked by the COP and the relevant answers given by Singh to the COP.

The prosecution also argued that Singh lied in several different instances of his COP statement and used different words on different occasions to give the same answer.

“It is therefore both practical and fair for the defendant to be required to answer a single charge which sets out the single wrong answer which reveals the essence of what he said in his statement to the COP. “I’m answering a series of questions,” he said.

While rejecting the defense’s “no case to answer” offer, Judge Tan said the unified approach taken by the prosecution was “sound and consistent” with the requirements of the law.

He also agreed with the prosecution that it was practical and fair for Singh to respond to a single charge that included a single wrong answer, rather than multiple charges being leveled against the defendant.

2. On the defense’s claim that the evidence on the first charge was ‘inherently unbelievable’

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

Mr Jumabhoy has three different accounts of what happened when Ms Khan first told WP chief, party president Sylvia Lim and deputy leader Faisal Manap at Singh’s house on August 8, 2021 that she had lied in Parliament on August 3 that year He said he gave it. .

The first of these was that in Ms Khan’s statement to the COP on 2 December 2021, the reaction of WP leaders was that “if I am not pressured, the best thing to do is to maintain the narrative that I started in August”.

The second was his testimony in his third appearance before the COP on 22 December 2021; Here it was very clear that Singh used the words “take him to the grave” at the meeting on 8 August.

The third was his evidence before the court regarding his response to Singh’s admission in Parliament that he had lied. He said Singh was listening, perhaps “a little upset about the situation”, and talked about taking him before the COP. “That would probably be something we would have to take to our graves,” he later said.

After listing these, Mr Jumabhoy said there is a clear difference between maintaining the narrative and taking the lie to the grave unless pressured.

He added that the proposal to take a lie to the grave is fundamentally different from not voluntarily stating the truth.

Mr Jumabhoy also defended the text message Ms Khan sent to former WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan after the meeting ended on 8 August. grave” – “must be handled with extreme caution”.

He said it was sent to Singh and his friends via text message by a person who had proven highly skilled at lying.

In response, the prosecution said Ms Khan’s evidence about the 8 August meeting “remains clear and convincing” despite the defense’s attempt to cast doubt.

He stated that the defense ignored the fact that during cross-examination Ms Khan did not agree that the two statements were different, and that this was why they had assumed during their meeting with WP leaders on 8 August that the lie would not be discovered. He would take it to the grave.

“There was no evidence from Ms Khan, either at the COP or in this court, that at the meeting on 8 August she was advised to tell the truth if the matter was raised,” the prosecution said.

The prosecution added that Ms Khan’s evidence showed that she and the WP leaders did not discuss this possibility at the meeting; The first guidance on what to do if pressure was put on him was in another meeting on October 3, 2021, when Singh told him. he wouldn’t judge her for continuing the narrative.

The prosecution also described it as “confusing” for the defense to claim that the phrase “take (her) to the grave” could mean different things, and said it was unreliable to rely on Ms Khan’s interpretation of the phrase without reference to what Singh had said. is meant by the expression.

It was stated that the defense side had previously claimed that Singh did not make such a statement in the meeting on August 8, but now took a less categorical stance against this claim.

“If the defendant’s view is that he meant something else by that statement, then it is the defendant’s duty to point that out from the witness box,” he added.

The prosecution said there was no reason for Ms Khan to lie to Ms Loh and Mr Nathan about “taking them to the grave” as she later made her lie to Parliament clear to staff and party leaders.

Additionally, Ms Khan knew that Ms Loh and Mr Nathan were due to meet Singh on August 10, 2021, so any lies would be “exposed almost immediately”.

This suggests that Ms. Khan’s text message is reliable evidence of what happened at the meeting on 8 August.

Justice Tan said he was satisfied with the court’s requirements to call Singh to testify about the interpretation of the WP chief’s responses to the COP and the reasonable inferences that could be drawn from it, including whether the allegedly false response was given deliberately. .

3. Judge ‘must keep an open mind’ before trial concludes, calls for prosecution

In written submissions, the prosecution asked the judge to “keep an open mind” about the veracity of any witness’s testimony before the trial concludes.

The prosecution said this meant that the task of assessing the evidence should only be done at the end of the trial and not at the current stage of the trial.

Referring to the case, the prosecution stated that the defense only needed to establish that there was “some inherently non-credible evidence” that met each element of the charges in order for the prosecution’s case to be finally called. law.

The prosecution emphasized that this was different from the final question at the end of the trial, which was whether every element of the crime had been established “beyond reasonable doubt”.

Meanwhile, it was stated that the court should only consider evidence adduced by the prosecution if it “has become discredited upon cross-examination or is so manifestly unreliable that no reasonable court can safely convict it”.

In announcing his decision, Judge Tan said the threshold the prosecution must reach at the end of its case “must be separated from the final question at the end of the trial”.

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

After listing these, Judge Tan said: “In conclusion, I am of the opinion that the conditions for the defendant to defend both charges have been met.

Singh was then asked to answer whether he wanted to give an affidavit and be cross-examined by the prosecution or remain silent and allow the court to draw inferences from his refusal to testify.

His response was: “Your Honor, I understand what you are saying. “I choose to testify before the court.”