Pritam Singh’s lawyer paints Raeesah Khan as habitual liar

Workers’ Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s defence lawyers sought to paint former WP MP Raeesah Khan as a habitual liar from the moment her cross-examination began on the second day of Singh’s trial.

At one charged moment in court, Singh’s lawyer, former prosecutor Andre Jumabhoy, confronted Ms Khan with the question, “You are, in fact, a liar, correct? You tell lies non-stop, don’t you?”

“Yes, I lied,” Ms Khan said in response to the first question. She also asked what Mr Jumabhoy meant by “non-stop”. 

At one point, the defence lawyer sought to show that Ms Khan did know what Singh meant when he requested her to substantiate part of an anecdote which turned out to be untrue. 

He had circled the anecdote on a printed copy of her Aug 3, 2021 speech and written “Substantiate?” next to it, before it was delivered in Parliament. Ms Khan told the Committee of Privileges in November 2021 that she did not understand what that meant at the time. 

Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to the committee convened to investigate Ms Khan’s untruth in Parliament.

Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament how 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.

Singh was charged under the Parliament (Privileges, Immunities and Powers) Act, which makes it an offence to lie in response to questions posed by Parliament or its committee. If convicted, he could be fined up to $7,000, jailed for up to three years, or both, on each charge.

Mr Jumabhoy started his line of questioning from how Ms Khan crafted the untrue anecdote, saying: “In terms of that anecdote, you had put yourself in the police station, but you weren’t there. 

“So when somebody says substantiate this because you were there, it’s really asking were you there, were you able to substantiate. And you knew in your mind that’s just not true because you weren’t there. So you did understand what substantiate means.”

Mr Jumabhoy then brought Ms Khan to the text messages between Singh and her on Aug 3, shortly after she delivered the speech containing the lie, in which Singh said: “I had a feeling this would happen. I highlighted this part in your draft speech. You should write to the police to clarify this matter.” 

To which, she had responded: “I thought I edited it enough to remove this possibility.”

The defence lawyer asked why she had said “no” when earlier asked if she made an edit based on Singh’s comment.

At this point, Ms Khan asked the lawyer to repeat or rephrase his questions to her several times, as he continued to poke at this apparent inconsistency.

After she asked for clarity a third time, Mr Jumabhoy said: “You’ve told Mr Singh ‘I thought I edited it enough to remove this possibility’. That’s your message there. You are now telling Mr Singh a lie.”

To which, she said: “What was your question again?”

The lawyer repeated his question a fifth time, and Ms Khan answered “no” when asked if she was telling Singh a lie in that instance.

During the Committee of Privileges (COP) hearing, Ms Khan had said: “At that point in time, I did not understand what that meant but, upon reflection, I understand now why he circled it and why he said what he said.”

She repeated this in her testimony on Oct 14, adding that she did not make further changes to the speech even after seeing Singh’s comment as she “didn’t really understand the severity of what he wrote”.

“I thought if it was something important, he would sit down and have a conversation with me, but he didn’t, so I didn’t make any changes,” she said in court when the prosecution was leading her evidence.

Mr Jumabhoy later asked point-blank if Ms Khan was saying it is true that she didn’t understand what “substantiate” meant despite the evidence that she had given so far in court, including when asked about her text about having “edited (her anecdote) enough”.

Ms Khan said nothing, prompting Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan to say: “You’d want to respond to that”.

“No, I don’t think I’ve anything else to say to that,” Ms Khan said.

Mr Jumabhoy moved on by stating that it is “fundamentally different” when her evidence to the COP was that she “didn’t understand” what substantiate meant, but she now stated in court that ‘substantiate’, to her, meant to “make sure it happened” or “make sure it is true”.

Ms Khan told the court she feels like she is saying the same things in different ways.

Singh is represented by Mr Jumabhoy and Mr Aristotle Emmanuel Eng Zhen Yang, from Mr Jumabhoy’s law firm. Singh’s father Amarjit Singh, a former district judge, is also part of his legal team. 

Ms Khan’s cross-examination is expected to continue for the rest of the day.