‘Who is telling the truth?’: Prosecution grills Pritam Singh on contradictions from Low Thia Khiang’s evidence

SINGAPORE: The prosecution on Friday (Nov 8) grilled Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh on the contradictions between his and Low Thia Khiang’s evidence in court. 
Deputy-Attorney General Ang Cheng Hock did not mince his words on the third day of his cross-examination of the Leader of the Opposition, asking if Singh was suggesting that Mr Low, the former secretary-general of WP, had lied.
Singh, who remained mostly calm and collected during the cross-examination, said that the prosecution would have to draw its own conclusions.
He stressed that he would share everything with Mr Low as that was the nature of his relationship with the party stalwart, who stepped down from the position of chief in 2018. 
Singh, 48, is contesting two charges of lying to a Committee of Privileges on Dec 10 and Dec 15, 2021. 
The allegations against him are related to what an ex-WP Member of Parliament, Ms Raeesah Khan, had said in parliament on Aug 3, 2021. 
Ms Khan had related an anecdote about how she accompanied a rape victim to a police station. She later revealed that this did not happen and that she had been a victim of sexual assault herself. 
The trial opened on Friday with prosecution and defence clashing over police statements previously recorded from Singh as part of investigations over the current allegations against him. 
The prosecution submitted six such statements to the court. 
Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy objected to his client being questioned only on specific portions of the statements.
The lawyer alleged that it was “unfair” for a witness to be cross-examined on a single part when Singh could have clarified or elaborated on his answer in other parts of the statement.  
Mr Ang, a senior counsel, pointed out that Mr Jumabhoy could clarify his client’s position during cross-examination or submissions. 
Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan ultimately recorded Mr Jumabhoy’s stance and the trial resumed with the prosecution asking Singh about the police statements. 
Mr Ang took Singh to a part of a statement, where Singh said that ex-WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan had not been trying to suppress Ms Khan’s untruth. 
In court however, Singh had testified “repeatedly” that the two were trying to suppress the untruth, Mr Ang said. 
“I will have to put it to you, Mr Singh, that … this police statement where you said that Pei Ying and Yudhishthra were not trying to suppress the untruth, that is in fact the true position. Do you agree?”
Singh maintained that there was no contradiction, leading Mr Ang to ask: “Only one can be the truth, can you tell us, were you lying in your police statement or were you lying in court?” 
Singh replied “I was not lying anywhere”. 
For a large part of the hearing, Mr Ang questioned Singh about details of Mr Low’s evidence. He highlighted the contradictions between Mr Low and Singh’s evidence, pointedly asking if Mr Low had been lying.
Mr Low testified as a prosecution witness during the first tranche of the trial in October. 
Part of his testimony had been related to his meeting with Singh and WP chair Ms Lim on Oct 11, 2021, where the three spoke of Ms Khan’s lie. 
In a brief testimony, Mr Low revealed that he was the one who had suggested the formation of a disciplinary panel to look into Ms Khan’s lie. He said that he only found out in August last year that Singh and fellow WP leaders Sylvia Lim and Muhamad Faisal Abdul Manap had known about Ms Khan’s lie since Aug 8, 2021.
Mr Low then wondered why it took “so long” to reveal that they had known about the lie.
He also testified that neither Singh nor Ms Lim had informed him that they had already told Ms Khan to clarify her lie in parliament. 
Asked in court whether Mr Low had advised the two WP leaders that Ms Khan should clarify the lie in parliament, Singh said that the two leaders already had that perspective before the Oct 11, 2021 meeting.
“We already knew what we wanted to do,” Singh said, speaking for himself and Ms Lim. 
But Mr Ang pointed out that Singh had not told Mr Low that the leaders had already instructed Ms Khan to clarify the lie in parliament.     
Singh disagreed, saying he would have made it known to Mr Low that a personal statement would be forthcoming from Ms Khan.
Mr Ang then asked if Mr Low ‘s recollection was wrong. 
“I wouldn’t say that,” replied Singh, qualifying that the meeting had been unremarkable to him. He added that he could not recall specific details of the conversation, but maintained that the party leaders would have told Mr Low that Ms Khan would have to come clean.  
Honing in on the inconsistency, Mr Ang then asked: “Who is telling the truth?”
“So either you are lying or he is lying. Is that what you are saying?” he asked.
Singh replied that the prosecution would have to draw its own conclusions. 
“I will,” Mr Ang replied. He then put to Singh that it was Mr Low who suggested that Ms Khan go to parliament to clarify the untruth. Singh disagreed. 
Turning to Singh’s police statement, Mr Ang directed his attention to how Singh had answered “yes” when the police asked if Mr Low had been told during the meeting that Ms Khan had confessed her lie to the party leaders on Aug 8, 2021. 
Singh concurred with his answer in the police statement. 
“I believe I would have … but my relationship with Mr Low is such that we speak openly about everything … anything that he asked, I would have answered openly,” he elaborated.
But Mr Low said the leaders did not tell him such a thing, Mr Ang pointed out. 
He asked again if Mr Low or Singh was telling the truth, and Singh doubled down on his answer in his statement. 
Asked if Mr Low was lying, Singh said it was a “question of memories”. 
He stuck to the stance that he would have shared the detail with Mr Low due to his relationship with the former secretary-general.
Mr Ang then suggested to Singh: “I will suggest to you that you never told Mr Low that you found out about the untruth as early as August, do you agree or disagree?”
Singh disagreed.
“The reason you did not do that is because you knew what Mr Low’s reaction would be,” continued Mr Ang.  Singh disagreed with this suggestion as well. 
The prosecution wrapped up its cross-examination of Singh on Friday morning with a series of questions putting its case to him. 
After the lunch break, the defence re-examined Singh to clarify the answers he gave during his cross-examination. 
Mr Jumabhoy referred the WP chief to evidence given to the COP on whether the matter of Ms Khan’s unsubstantiated anecdote would be dropped.
During the cross-examination by Mr Ang, the prosecution had suggested that Singh thought the matter was resolved, as part of an argument that he did not intend to have Ms Khan clarify her lie in parliament.
Singh said that as of Aug 3, 2021, he did believe that the issue would not resurface because he believed the anecdote to be true. 
“But as the days went on, it was clear that the anecdote wasn’t true and because it wasn’t true, I felt instinctively that this matter may come up again,” he said.
He added that whether the matter was pursued or not was out of his hands because it depended on whether other MPs had follow-up questions.
Mr Jumabhoy also asked Singh why Ms Khan could clarify her untruth on the Oct 4 parliament sitting but not Oct 5. Singh replied that after Ms Khan repeated her lie on Oct 4, it was not possible to clarify it the next day as he had to “make enquiries on why she had done it”. 
Mr Jumabhoy then asked if the format for clarifying a statement and giving a personal statement differed.
Singh said that a clarification would simply be verbal while a personal statement would come under the Standing Orders of the Parliament of Singapore. 
The defence lawyer also asked Singh to clarify what he meant when he said that the condition of Ms Khan speaking to her parents before coming clean became “secondary priority” after she repeated her lie in parliament.
Singh said that Ms Khan settling the issue with her parents was no longer an important issue in his mind as there were two lies. From that point, he wanted to take charge and make sure that Ms Khan would correct her untruth in parliament, he said. 
Turning to Nov 1, 2021, when Ms Khan revealed her untruth in parliament, Mr Jumabhoy asked if Singh was concerned that she would reveal details of his involvement.
The prosecution had said that Singh was afraid Ms Khan would reveal his involvement and knowledge of the lie if she spoke to the police, who requested an interview with her in October 2021.
Singh instead argued that the WP takes the separation of powers in Singapore seriously, and he believed Ms Khan should clarify her lie in court rather than in any other place.
“That would include a police investigation, in my view,” he said.
Singh said Ms Khan was given “carte blanche” to say anything she wanted to when admitting to her lie in parliament, and the leaders had not scripted with her what to share or withhold because there was no “guilty conscience”. 
In relation to Singh’s Oct 11 meeting with Mr Low, Mr Jumabhoy asked Singh if Ms Khan had been expelled between then and when she gave a statement in parliament. The question was in response to how the prosecution had earlier suggested that there had been a plan to expel Ms Khan during the meeting. 
Singh said Ms Khan had not been expelled during the period indicated. Ms Khan resigned from the party on Nov 30, 2021. 
“Was it in your personal power to expel her?” Mr Jumabhoy asked. 
“No, it was not,” Singh replied. 
The defence concluded its re-examination in less than half an hour and closed its case without calling any witnesses.