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SINGAPORE – Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy, who is representing Workers' Party (WP) chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh, sought to paint former WP MP Raeesah Khan as a habitual liar from the moment her cross-examination began on Oct 15.

After more apparent inconsistencies were put to Ms Khan, it became clear that this was part of the defence's bid to impeach Ms Khan's credit as a witness.

Such impeachment can happen if a witness gives testimony that is inconsistent with his or her former statements, according to the Evidence Act.

The attempt sparked a 30-minute debate on the second day of Singh's trial around whether there was really a discrepancy in Ms Khan's testimony. Mr Jumabhoy, a former prosecutor, argued that Ms Khan's statement to the police should be allowed as evidence for purposes of this impeachment process.

Ms Khan had to step out of the courtroom while these arguments were made, but the court was adjourned for the day before the matter was resolved.

Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan is expected to continue to hear the defence's argument for impeachment on Oct 16, when Singh's trial resumes.

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.

If convicted, he could be fined up to $7,000, jailed for up to three years, or both, on each charge.

Lies upon lies

The defence's three-hour cross-examination was littered with charged moments.

On one occasion, Mr 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".

In another instance, Mr Jumabhoy sought to show that Ms Khan had built upon her original lie with more lies, noting that she had managed to lie at least four times in a message to Singh. "That's pretty impressive by any stretch of the imagination," the lawyer said.

The message in question was Ms Khan's response to Singh when he asked, soon after she delivered her untrue anecdote in Parliament on Aug 3, 2021, if she was still in contact with the woman mentioned.

Ms Khan had told Singh then that the incident took place three years earlier in the early part of the year, and that she had met the victim at a bus stop near Bedok police station.

In response to Mr Kumabhoy's statement, Ms Khan said: "I wouldn't call it impressive, I would call it fear". He then remarked that she is "seen to be well-thinking enough" to add facts to support her accounts.

Ms Khan then said: "I would think being well-thinking would be coming out with the truth."

The defence also had her reaffirming her other lies to Singh, including that the number of the person who put the victim in touch with her was not working any more, or that she was not in touch with an organisation but rather "someone who came into my friend's radar".

At one point, Mr Jumabhoy asked about the lies she made in text messages, saying: "You're adding more substance, aren't you?", "You're adding more facts to support a lie", and "So it's a lie heaped upon a lie. And it's going to be wrapped up in more lies isn't it?".

Ms Khan agreed to all these statements.

When Mr Jumabhoy asked if that was how she treated someone she revered – a point she had made when questioned by the prosecution – she said she allowed her lies to snowball as she feared disappointing Singh.

She later told the court that she could have continued lying, but chose to admit the lie over a phone call to Singh on Aug 7. The lawyer put it to her that Singh had to ask her "point-blank whether the anecdote was true", and that she had not volunteered the information. She agreed.

Mr Jumabhoy also asked if she had clarified what the WP leaders wanted her to "take to the grave" during the Aug 8, 2021 meeting. That day, she had confessed her lie to Singh, Ms Sylvia Lim and Mr Faisal Manap. She said she did not.

With that, the lawyer put it to her that it was her assumption that the leaders had wanted her to take her lie in Parliament to the grave, and she said: "Yes".

'Substantiate?'

Mr Jumabhoy also sought to discredit Ms Khan based on her testimony before the Committee of Privileges (COP) in 2021. During that hearing, she said she did not know what Singh meant when he circled the problematic anecdote on a printed copy of her Aug 3 speech before it was delivered, and wrote "Substantiate?" next to it.

Mr Jumabhoy read out text messages between Singh and Ms Khan on Aug 3, shortly after she delivered the speech containing the lie. In them, 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."

She had told Singh: "I thought I edited it enough to remove this possibility."

If she had edited the statement, why did she say "no" when earlier asked if she made an edit based on Singh's comment, Mr Jumabhoy asked.

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

After she asked for clarity a third time, Mr Jumabhoy read out her text message again. "That's your message there. You are now telling Mr Singh a lie."

"What was your question again?" Ms Khan asked.

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. This was because she thought she had already edited the speech enough before Singh's feedback, and thus did not make further edits after seeing his comment, she added.

During the COP hearing, Ms Khan had also 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 questioned by the prosecution.

Mr Jumabhoy later asked point-blank if Ms Khan was saying it is true she did not understand what "substantiate" meant, despite the evidence that she had given so far in court.

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 then said her evidence to the COP was that she "didn't understand" what substantiate meant, whereas her statement in court was that she understands the term to mean "make sure it happened" or "make sure it is true". This is fundamentally different, he added.

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

Defence says message on taking info to the grave was 'never sent'

The defence also suggested the possibility that Ms Khan's message to WP cadres Loh Pei Ying and Yudhishthra Nathan on Aug 8, 2021 about taking "the information to the grave" was never sent.

In leading the evidence towards this, Mr Jumabhoy said Ms Khan was aware that the message was significant, but decided not to mention it until after Ms Loh had brought it up before the COP.

He pointed out that the message in question was deleted from her phone and had to be extracted from Mr Nathan's phone.

Ms Khan said her phone was "a really old phone" that was "constantly crashing", which was why she deleted a number of mobile applications, including WhatsApp.

Later, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock sought to clarify if the defence's position was that the message was forged or not sent. Mr Jumabhoy said given that Mr Loh and Mr Nathan did not react to the message, "it appears that it was never sent".

The judge interjected to say he did not understand the point being made, adding: "They didn't react means she didn't send? They might have many reasons not to react? I think we can leave it to that."

Prosecution objects to impeachment application

Near the end of the session, the prosecution protested when Mr Jumabhoy sought to establish that Ms Khan had produced one version of evidence in front of the court, and another in her statement to the police.

Singh had sent an e-mail on Oct 1, 2021 reminding MPs of parliamentary protocol, which Ms Khan had described in court as "almost a dig at me". But Mr Jumabhoy noted that Ms Khan said "something quite different" to the police – that she was frightened that the untruth would be brought up in Parliament.

Mr Ang objected to the defence's "liberal" reference to police statements, noting that there must be a "material inconsistency" before he could do so.

"I've not objected so far because I am waiting for him to come to a material discrepancy. Surely, he must tell the court what it is," Mr Ang said.

The judge agreed, saying that the discrepancy to launch this impeachment process has to be "material", but the defence had not "really laid the ground for that". This was why he had a problem with how Ms Khan's questioning had gone, he said.

Ms Khan was then asked to leave the courtroom for the defence to make its application, following which both lawyers rose to their feet. Mr Ang said he was struggling to understand Mr Jumabhoy's characterisation of the discrepancy, adding that he was not sure why Ms Khan's reaction to the e-mail was material.

"The simple point is that this e-mail speaks for itself. All of us can read it," Mr Ang said.

He then said: "All this other evidence of whether it was a dig and whether she felt fear, all this is not the main point. One does not go through the whole impeachment procedure for something that is not really material."

Mr Jumabhoy insisted that what Ms Khan presented as evidence in relation to the e-mail involved "two fundamentally different reactions".

He also argued that Singh's e-mail on Oct 1 "has to be a nudge" to clarify her untruth if viewed against the evidence of her police statement.

But Mr Ang said Ms Khan didn't state if she viewed the e-mail as a nudge, direction or push to clarify the untruth.

She read it as a warning to all WP members that they have to substantiate any anecdotes made in Parliament, and not a direction to correct the lie she had already made, he noted.

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

Ms Khan's cross-examination is expected to continue on Oct 16.