SINGAPORE – Workers’ Party (WP) chief Pritam Singh had told two party cadres that he met former Sengkang GRC MP Raeesah Khan on Oct 3, 2021, and told her he would not judge her, regardless of whether she decided to continue her lie or tell the truth to Parliament.

       This was the testimony of former WP cadre Yudhishthra Nathan, who took the stand as the third witness on day five of Singh’s trial on Oct 18.

       “He said verbatim ‘I will not judge you’,” said Mr Nathan, who was recounting to the court what transpired during a meeting that he and fellow cadre Loh Pei Ying had with Singh on Oct 12, 2021.

       Singh is fighting two charges over allegedly lying to a parliamentary committee that he had, on Aug 8 and Oct 3, 2021, wanted Ms Khan to clarify her untruth in Parliament.

       Ms Khan lied to Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively.

       She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.

       The court heard that when Singh met Mr Nathan and Ms Loh on the night of Oct 12, 2021, the Leader of the Opposition “did convey” that he had a feeling Ms Khan’s untruth would come up when Parliament sat on Oct 4.

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       So he paid a visit to her house the day before, on Oct 3, 2021.

       That was where Singh “conveyed to Ms Khan that whether she decided to continue the lie or narrative, or whether she decided to tell the truth, that he would not judge her”, Mr Nathan told the court.

       When Deputy Public Prosecutor Sivakumar Ramasamy asked about his reaction to what Singh said, Mr Nathan replied: “I did think that was rather indecisive of him. But I didn’t verbally express it. I didn’t see a need to at that point in time.”

       Asked if Singh had specified when Ms Khan was supposed to decide between continuing the lie and telling the truth, Mr Nathan, who left WP in 2022, said the party chief had not.

       Queried on his understanding of Singh’s remark that he would not judge Ms Khan, Mr Nathan said: “He was leaving it open to her that whichever option she chose, including the option to maintain the lie, that he would have no problem with that.”

       Mr Nathan said he also asked Singh on Oct 12 if he had consulted former party chief Low Thia Khiang on the matter.

       Singh replied that Mr Low’s view was that Ms Khan should come clean as soon as possible, he added.

       Mr Nathan, who had been part of WP’s media team, told the court that he had met Ms Khan at least two or three times after Oct 12, 2021, over the personal statement that she was to deliver in Parliament to clarify her lie. It took about half a month to finalise the statement, he said.

       Asked by the prosecution if the preparation could be done in one day, he said no.

       The court earlier heard his take on Ms Khan’s Aug 8, 2021, text message to their group chat with Ms Loh, in which the former MP had said: “I told them what I told you guys and they agreed that the best thing to do is to take the info to the grave.”

       Ms Khan had met Singh, WP chairwoman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap earlier that day.

       Mr Nathan said he understood Ms Khan’s message to mean that the three party leaders were telling her to bury the truth about her anecdote and the fact that she had lied in Parliament.

       His view of what Ms Khan said was that “as far as party leaders were concerned, this issue of her having lied in Parliament was essentially something the party didn’t need to address”.

       He also testified that he wanted to present himself before the party’s disciplinary panel as it had become apparent to Ms Loh and him as early as Nov 13, 2021, that the exercise of having the panel was “more of a witch hunt”.

       The court heard that on that day, Ms Khan had told Mr Nathan and Ms Loh via text that she thought Singh wanted her to resign from the party.

       In response, Mr Nathan texted: “And he gets off scot-free? Cause right now people don’t know that he knew it was a lie when you told that to (Law and Home Affairs Minister K.) Shanmugam?”

       In another text, he said Ms Khan could damage Singh’s reputation if she was asked by the Committee of Privileges (COP) what the party leaders knew, to which Ms Khan replied: “I wouldn’t do that.”

       Asked what he understood by Ms Khan’s last message, he said he thought she was fearful of the prospect of telling the COP that the leaders were involved in her maintaining the lie from August onwards.

       His sense was her fear had to do with the fact that she was a new MP, though he qualified that “I don’t think she was the only new MP who was a tad bit fearful of what the leaders thought of them”.

       Mr Nathan also testified that when he and Ms Loh met the panel on Nov 25, 2021, they made known their reservations about the panel telling Ms Khan that she needed to get the support of her fellow MPs, because at least one of them was “pretty biased against her”.

       This bias pretty much started since their interactions at the 2020 General Election, where Ms Khan ran as a first-time candidate, and carried on into their work as fellow MPs, he said.

       Mr Nathan then said that having witnessed their interactions during the 2020 General Election, he knew Ms He Ting Ru was “never a fan” of Ms Khan and Associate Professor Jamus Lim.

       “I’d say their work relationships also had ups and downs, and as time progressed, it became clear to me that (Ms He) continued to dislike Ms Khan – not saying the same for Jamus but certainly Ms Khan,” he added.

       The prosecution also asked Mr Nathan why he chose to redact a message sent in the group chat with Ms Khan and Ms Loh on Oct 12, 2021, when submitting evidence to the COP.

       He said he felt the message, which said “I think we should just not give too many details”, could be redacted as it was “immaterial to the COP investigation”.

       Ms Loh had admitted lying about the real reason she redacted this same text message in court the day before.

       Mr Nathan said he sent the message after Ms Khan told the second untruth on Oct 4, 2021, adding that by the end of Oct 12, Singh and the three of them in the group chat were “all on the same page that she should come clean”.

       He added that although the COP had asked for content and messages up to November that year, his view was that the committee was interested in how the party leaders treated Ms Khan, kicked her out of the party, and Ms Khan’s state of mind while that was happening.

       “I believe they were interested in that precisely because party leaders had been involved since August before she had spoken the second untruth. To me, this message that I’d sent on Oct 12 was immaterial to the COP investigation,” he said.

       He added that he was told by “a couple of committee members” that it would be all right to redact irrelevant information and things of that nature in the submissions.

       As for how the redaction was done, Mr Nathan said that after he gave his testimony to the COP, he was at some point asked to head down to the Parliament House library, where he sat next to COP member Rahayu Mahzam, who is from the ruling People’s Action Party, to do so in front of a computer screen.

       He said they went through the messages that had been extracted from his phone one by one.

       While going through the messages, they would talk about what could be redacted and what should stay, he said.

       “I believe I was doing the redactions on the spot and I believe I had to provide a reason for why each message had to be redacted,” he added.

       Mr Nathan recalled the Deputy Clerk of Parliament and one other Parliament staff member being present as well.

       He said Ms Rahayu had to leave for constituency work at some point in the evening, while he stayed on till Parliament staff had to close the library.

       They asked him to complete the rest of the redactions and send those by e-mail, he said, adding that he proceeded to do so in his car at the building’s carpark.

       Asked if he was told to indicate a reason for redacting his message about not giving too many details, he said he must have indicated that it was not relevant to the COP’s investigations.

       Asked if this particular message was approved by anyone, he said he could not remember. He added that there were hundreds of messages and he could not remember at which message Ms Rahayu had stopped being with him.

       Mr Nathan’s cross-examination will begin on Oct 21.