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SINGAPORE – Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong arrived in court on Monday (November 30) to testify in his defamation lawsuit against The Online Citizen (TOC) editor Terry Xu.
Xu’s lawyer, Lim Tean, began his questioning of PM Lee.
The week-long hearing was also able to see the prime minister’s brothers, Dr. Lee Wei Ling and Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, take the witness stand to testify in court.
The case revolves around claims made by TOC in an article published on August 15 last year, titled “PM Lee’s wife Ho Ching shares a strange article on severing ties with family members.”
The TOC article had commented on how PM Lee’s wife, Ms. Ho Ching, had shared a link on Facebook to an article titled “Here’s why it’s okay to sever ties with toxic family members sometimes.”
He also referenced a Facebook post that Dr. Lee made in May. Mr. Lee Hsien Yang had also shared Dr. Lee’s post.
In September last year, Prime Minister Lee asked TOC to remove the article, along with a Facebook post linking it, and publish a full and unconditional apology.
His press secretary, Chang Li Lin, said that the allegations in the article and publication were defamatory and repeated several false accusations against Prime Minister Lee that his sister had previously made.
One such allegation was that Prime Minister Lee had misled his father, the late Mr. Lee Kuan Yew, into believing that his 38 Oxley Road property had been listed by the Singapore government, and that it was useless for the founding Prime Minister keep your direction from demolishing it.
Another allegation was that Mr. Lee Kuan Yew removed PM Lee as executor and trustee of his will after it was revealed to him in late 2013 that the 38 Oxley Road property had in fact not been published.
Later, Prime Minister Lee initiated legal proceedings against Mr. Xu when the latter refused to take the article and publish it or apologize. He also filed a lawsuit against the Malay author of the article, Rubaashini Shunmuganathan.
His lawyers said that the article had seriously damaged PM Lee’s character and reputation and that PM Lee had been “led to public scandal, hatred and contempt”.
The case could see Prime Minister Lee take the witness stand to testify in court, Chang said in September.
He noted that although PM Lee had chosen not to sue his siblings as it would further muddy their parents’ names, this did not mean that he would never take legal action if necessary.
In October last year, Mr. Xu applied to add PM Lee’s siblings to the lawsuit as third parties. He said he wanted them to bear damages if he was found to have defamed Prime Minister Lee in the TOC article.
He said that the TOC article simply cited directly the public comments made by Mr. Lee and Dr. Lee and that they would be aware of details regarding the truth of the allegations.
“The defendant reserves the right to question LWL and LHY to provide further information,” Mr. Xu said in his defense document, referring to Dr. Lee and Mr. Lee by their initials.
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