31 January 2025
(1) INTRODUCTION
1. By the end of the Committee of Privileges (“COP”) hearings, we already knew that Ms Khan had given contradictory accounts of her meeting with Mr Singh, Ms Sylvia Lim (“Ms Lim”), and Mr Muhamad Faisal bin Abdul Manap (“Mr Faisal”) on 8 August. She had gone from alleging that she was told to continue the narrative if not pressed, to taking the lie to the grave.
2. What we were not aware of was the extent to which she, and her co-conspirators, Ms Loh Pei Ying (“PW2”) and Mr Yudhishthra Nathan (“PW3”), went to conceal their dealings from the COP. These new facts present a vastly different conclusion on their credibility. We referred to them in our closing submissions at [1] – [6] and restate some significant ones below:
a. Ms Khan’s admission of her conversation with PW2 and PW3 on 7 August 2021 revealed an understanding between all three to “bury” the truth.
b. The three of them met on 29 November to align their evidence before appearing before the COP. At that meeting, PW2 convinced Ms Khan to adopt a version of her truth.
c. At that meeting, PW2 sent a message to Mr Singh through Mike Lim to pressure Mr Singh to change the decision to sack Ms Khan from the Workers’ Party or she would tell “her truth” to the COP. Mr Singh, unmoved by such threats, simply responded that they should tell the truth.
d. The trial, through Exhibit D2-1 to D2-5, exposed the fact that PW2 and PW3 encouraged Ms Khan to maintain the lie. It is also showed that Ms Khan was quite prepared to back her lie without any “guidance” from Mr Singh after she had been confronted by the Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam (“Mr. Shanmugam”) on 4 October.
e. Unlike Mr Singh, Ms Khan, PW2 and PW3 deleted chats from their mobile devices before and after their appearances before the COP.
f. PW2 disobeyed a direct instruction from the COP not to discuss her evidence with PW3 when she called him to give him a “heads up”.
g. Both PW2 and PW3, despite the instructions not to discuss the evidence, managed to redact the same message telling Ms Khan not to admit to the truth.
3. Their actions stand in marked contrast to Mr Singh. There is no contradictory account of his meetings with Ms Khan on 8 August or 3 October. There were no deleted messages by Mr Singh, who submitted his device to the police with no messages removed from the scrutiny of the COP or police either before or after the COP proceedings.
4. The Prosecution’s submissions do not adequately address the new evidence above at [2] that emerged at the trial. By the very fact that Exhibits D2-1 to D2-5 were disclosed by the Prosecution pursuant to their Kadar1 obligations, it is incontrovertible that the messages contained in those exhibits, which were never placed before the COP, are credible and relevant to Mr Singh’s innocence.2 Yet, save for some fleeting remarks on Exhibit D2-4,3 the Prosecution do not discuss these exhibits at all. At its lowest, this evidence supports the Defence’s case while simultaneously undermining the Prosecution’s.
5. 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 now wants to portray herself as some sort of naïve “27-28 year old rookie MP”.4 You also have her co-conspirators, engaging in Machiavellian subterfuge. Their attempt to cover up the evidence raises significant concern: what exactly was in those messages that they felt compelled to delete immediately after the sitting on 4 October? What other messages did they delete before, during and after the COP hearing? What were they trying to hide? Whose interests were they protecting? In all of this, and 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. These are the same people the Prosecution rely on to prove their case beyond reasonable doubt.
6. On the other hand, you have Mr Singh, who holds himself in a diametrically opposite fashion. Despite having much more to lose than Ms Khan, there is no attempt to coach her on her statement on 1 November; there is no giving in to the threats of PW2, except to say tell the truth; there are no frantic calls to witnesses before they give evidence; and there is no deleting or hiding of text messages. There is none of this because he had nothing to hide.
7. The burden of proving the charges remains on the Prosecution throughout. It is their burden to prove those charges beyond reasonable doubt. There is no burden on Mr Singh to prove his innocence, particularly when what he is being asked to do is to prove a negative. We say that, in the final analysis, when the credibility of the Prosecution witnesses’ is assessed, the only just verdict is that the Prosecution’s case has not been proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Download Defence Reply Submissions (Full Document)
1 Muhammad bin Kadar v Public Prosecutor [2011] 4 SLR 791; Defence Bundle of Authorities (Reply) (“DBOA 2”) at TAB 1.
2 Notes of Evidence (“NE”) (21 October 2024) at p 135 line 23 – p 136 line 5.
3 Prosecution closing submissions dated 13 January 2025 (“Prosecution Submissions”) at [155] – [159].
4 NE (14 October 2024) at p 26 line 16
Office of the Leader of the Opposition 