Deleting messages, aligning evidence and thinking Raeesah Khan was naive: Defence grills Loh Pei Ying

SINGAPORE: Ms Loh Pei Ying, former secretarial assistant to Workers’ Party (WP) member of parliament (MP) Raeesah Khan, admitted on the stand on Friday (Oct 18) to deleting messages and calling another WP cadre after giving evidence before the Committee of Privileges (COP), to tell him things beyond what she had been allowed to.
Ms Loh was also questioned about whether she had called Ms Khan “stupid”, “naive” and like a “lao hong biscuit”.
Ms Loh admitted to the latter two descriptions but not the first, clarifying that she meant the Hokkien term “lao hong” as in how Ms Khan can “buckle quite easily under pressure”.
This came out when Pritam Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, continued his cross-examination of Ms Loh, who is the second witness for the prosecution.
Singh is on trial for lying in parliament in 2021 before the COP, which was convened to look into the conduct of Ms Khan, who had lied in parliament about accompanying a rape victim to a police station.
He is accused of lying to the COP about wanting to get Ms Khan to tell the truth about her false anecdote.
Broadly, Singh’s case so far is that he never told Ms Khan to maintain her lie, but Ms Khan and Ms Loh, her close confidante, had testified contrary to this.
Ms Loh, who left WP in late-2022 after 11 years with the party, admitted under questioning that she had deleted messages in her phone after giving evidence before the COP in December 2021.
She was the first to give evidence before the COP, and she knew that the COP was already asking for messages she might have.
When Mr Jumabhoy asked Ms Loh if she had certain messages from Dec 2, 2021, in her phone, she asked if she should check.
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock then told the judge he was “really questioning” why so much time was being spent on what happened Ms Loh and her fellow cadre member Yudhishthra Nathan, when the case was not about whether they had given false evidence before the COP.
Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan then asked Mr Jumabhoy, generally speaking, if any of this was relevant. 
Mr Jumabhoy replied: “It seems clear, that in terms of the same witnesses that have come before your court, they have come together at least one or two days before the COP, and my suggestion is – to align their evidence, and then whilst they are giving evidence, they are texting each other about what’s going on, and that we say is influencing the same position they are taking here today. And in that respect, I would say, it’s relevant.”
He was allowed to continue, and asked Ms Loh if she had contacted Mr Nathan before and after she gave evidence before the COP in December 2021.
Ms Loh asked to check her phone and used it to say that she had texted Mr Nathan just before going into the building and later on after that.
When pressed by the judge and Mr Jumabhoy if she had texted Mr Nathan while she was in the parliament building, Ms Loh replied: “I don’t have those messages in my phone.”
“Did he text you?” asked Mr Jumabhoy. Ms Loh repeated that she did not have those messages in her phone, then said she did not know where those messages were.
She then asked: “If I can elaborate on this a little, I want to be honest.”
After Judge Tan permitted her to, Ms Loh explained: “I did call (Mr Nathan) when I was in the parliamentary (building), after I gave my evidence, they put me in a room to have lunch, and that time, Mr Tan Chuan-Jin had given me permission to call Mr Nathan to inform him as a courtesy that he had to come into the COP to give evidence.”
“And I believe Mr Nathan had texted me here and there and I may have, I can’t recall, I may have removed those messages from my phone, and the reason is because I was primarily concerned about the fact that I did not inform the COP of (a crisis communications expert’s) presence at the meeting on Oct 23 at the WP headquarters, and I didn’t want her identity to come out, so I think the text messages then were about those. If I recall correctly.”
Mr Jumabhoy smiled: “So, there were text messages.”
“I guess so, yeah. But I don’t have them on my phone right now,” said Ms Loh. 
“When you say you don’t have them. You deleted them. Right?” asked the lawyer.
Ms Loh agreed. She said she could not recall when she deleted them.
“After you finished giving evidence and you walked out, did you delete messages on your phone? I’m talking about Dec 2 (2021),” said Mr Jumabhoy.
“I deleted lots of things, including large (chat) groups with other volunteers,” said Ms Loh.
“At that point, you already knew the COP was asking for messages you might have. And your instinct when you walked out after giving evidence was to delete messages?” asked the lawyer.
“That wasn’t my instinct, I did many other things,” replied Ms Loh.
The line of questioning revealed that all conversations within the COP were meant to be confidential, but since Ms Loh had asked to be given a chance to give Mr Nathan a heads-up about being called down to testify before the COP, she was given “an exception” to make a phone call only about that.
Asked what she had told Mr Nathan on the phone, Ms Loh said: “I said, ‘I can’t believe Pritam said those things to the press, you have to come here and tell the truth’. Those were my exact words.”
She acknowledged that she had gone further than what the COP had allowed her to tell Mr Nathan in her phone call.
Mr Jumabhoy then repeatedly pressed Ms Loh on what she thought Mr Nathan was going to do, if not tell the truth.
Ms Loh replied: “I was very emotional at this point, because when I was in the COP, I was informed by Mr Don Wee that Pritam had only told the public that he was informed of Raeesah’s lie after Oct 3 (2021). Mr Don read the news report to me wrongly. And I was in extreme fear and anger that Mr Singh had just blatantly lied. So that was my fear. I felt it was important for Mr Nathan to come and verify all the events I had experienced and he had experienced with me, that is why I made that statement to Mr Nathan. I didn’t think Mr Nathan was going to lie, but I was compelled by emotion at that point.”
“So you were angry. You were working on the wrong assumption,” said Mr Jumabhoy. “So, angry, with the wrong facts, you feel the need to speak to Mr Nathan.”
“I think anyone in that position would have felt the same,” answered Ms Loh.
“Anyone in that position would have followed the rules,” countered Mr Jumabhoy.
Mr Jumabhoy also charged in his line of questioning that Ms Loh had been conspiring with Ms Khan and Mr Nathan to “align” their evidence before the COP.
Ms Loh had testified that it was “above my pay grade” to tell Ms Khan to tell the truth in parliament.
“It’s not your pay grade to tell her to tell the truth,” said Mr Jumabhoy. “But it seems to be within your pay grade to decide what evidence goes before the COP.”
Ms Loh said in various ensuing answers that she was not Ms Khan’s secretarial assistant anymore at that point, so she was not sure about the term “pay grade”.
“I’m going to characterise that manipulative. Do you agree? … You don’t think it’s manipulative to decide what evidence helps you and your friends?” asked Mr Jumabhoy.
After asking for the question to be repeated, Ms Loh conceded: “It is manipulative.”
Ms Loh had told the COP that the consensus between herself, Mr Nathan and Singh at a meeting on Oct 12, 2021, was that Ms Khan should tell the truth.
Mr Jumabhoy then pointed to messages Ms Loh exchanged with Mr Nathan, saying there was no consensus between the pair as to what they wanted Ms Khan to do.
Ms Loh acknowledged that there had been a disagreement between herself and Mr Nathan on what Ms Khan should do, before they went for the Oct 12, 2021, meeting with Singh. 
She said Mr Nathan’s position had been that it would be “extremely damaging to the WP” to reveal the truth to Singapore and parliament. 
“He suggested a solution that would, unfortunately, misdirect the police query,” said Ms Loh. 
“When you say misdirect, that’s almost a nice way of saying suggesting a solution to lie,” said Mr Jumabhoy, smiling.
“Yes,” answered Ms Loh.
When asked if she had been 100 per cent in wanting to have Ms Khan tell the truth, Ms Loh said: “I had my reservations also, because of the degree of consequences I knew the party would face. I won’t say 100 per cent, but I was very close to it.”
She said she was 90 per cent.
Ms Loh acknowledged under questioning that Mr Nathan had suggested at the meeting with Singh to continue the lie.
“Mr Singh responded – ‘don’t even suggest covering this up with another lie’. Correct?” asked Mr Jumabhoy.
“That’s right,” said Ms Loh.
“So at this meeting, or at least when it started, the only one who thought the truth should come out, was Mr Singh,” said the lawyer.
“No, I thought it too,” said Ms Loh.
“At least 90 per cent,” said Mr Jumabhoy.
Ms Loh paused before saying: “Sure.”
Mr Jumabhoy also asked Ms Loh if she was concerned, around the end of November 2021, that Singh would accuse her and Mr Nathan of conspiring with Ms Khan.
“I was extremely concerned of that after she resigned and after I think the WP announced their decision about the disciplinary panel on that matter, yeah. And to be more specific, I was extremely concerned now that I’m recalling from the 29th of November after Ms Khan phoned me to say the party leaders strongly recommend she resigns,” said Ms Loh.
The court heard that Ms Loh and Ms Khan received invitations on Nov 29, 2021 to testify before the COP.
Ms Khan wanted to meet Ms Loh. Asked if Ms Khan may have said she wanted to meet to “align facts”, Ms Loh said “maybe”.
However, she did not meet Ms Khan as it was “very late” and she was already meeting Mr Nathan and a legislative assistant, where they discussed “not how much truth but how much information should be shared”.
Mr Jumabhoy charged that Ms Loh had said in that meeting that she wanted to give Singh one last chance to act – either change the decision of the disciplinary panel with regard to expelling Ms Khan or forcing her resignation, or “to be forthcoming with the public”.
Ms Loh would not agree to this, saying it was not an “either-or” situation but that she wanted Singh to “find a solution”.
This message about giving Singh one last chance to act was conveyed to Singh via the legislative assistant, and Ms Loh acknowledged that Singh’s response was to tell the assistant to tell Ms Loh to speak the truth.
Earlier on Monday morning, the trial briefly took on a lighter tone when Mr Jumabhoy was questioning Ms Loh about terms she had used on Ms Khan.
He asked her if she had told the WP disciplinary panel on Nov 25, 2021 that Ms Khan was naive and stupid.
“I can’t remember if I used those terms, but I definitely would have said naive,” said Ms Loh, adding it was “possible” she said Ms Khan was stupid.
“Do you think she’s self-centred?” asked Mr Jumabhoy.
“Yes,” she answered.
“Did you describe her as ‘lao hong’,” asked Mr Jumabhoy, spelling the Hokkien term out. “Does that mean you think she’s weak and crumbles under criticism?”
Ms Loh said: “I wouldn’t use the term ‘weak’, but I used that term (lao hong) because I felt she was quite susceptible to criticism, yes.”
“But in terms of your understanding what lao hong means, is it weak?” asked the lawyer.
“Would you call a lao hong biscuit a weak biscuit?” countered Ms Loh. “It’s just not a crispy biscuit.”
“I’m told for biscuits, lao hong means stale,” said Mr Jumabhoy after looking at his colleague Mr Aristotle Eng.
“I don’t think it’s stale in Singapore, sometimes it means soft,” said Ms Loh.
The judge interjected and asked her to clarify what she meant by “lao hong”.
“I mean that Ms Khan can buckle quite easily under pressure. She’s susceptible to criticism … what people say about her … affects her … quite easily. That’s what I meant,” answered Ms Loh.
The defence completed its cross-examination of Ms Loh late on Friday morning, with the prosecution doing a brief re-examination to clarify some of her answers. 
After that, Mr Jumabhoy requested to vacate the trial next Thursday morning (Oct 24) as Singh wanted to attend his daughter’s graduation, where she was giving a speech.
The prosecution said they had some difficulty with the defence’s application, saying trial dates had been given in April.
The judge said he would decide nearer the date, depending on how the trial went.
Towards the end of the morning’s hearing, Judge Tan also asked the prosecution to clarify one of Singh’s charges, asking if the prosecution was asking the court to draw an inference, because the words stated in the charge were not Singh’s exact words before the COP.
Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock agreed that the prosecution was inviting the court to draw an inference in the sense that there was no suggestion by Singh before the COP that he meant anything else, except that he wanted Ms Khan to clarify the untruth and admit it was untrue at some point.
“But at that point on Aug 8 (2021), his evidence that he wanted that to happen – we say that was untrue,” said Mr Ang.
The hearing resumes on Friday afternoon, with Mr Nathan taking the stand as the prosecution’s third witness.