Pritam Singh refutes claims by Raisa Khan and her two aides and clarifies: ‘I will not judge you’

He explained that WP leaders did not conduct any investigations into the sexual assault and “took her word for it.”

“Her state at that point was very fragile, very emotional, and I think pursuing that issue wasn’t something I was thinking about… because of her state of affairs,” he said.

He added that public attention at the time was focused on Ms Khan not so much because of the anecdote or Mr Tan’s question, but because of the content of her speech. He explained that he had been asked this during his walks that week.

At the end of the meeting, Singh said it was agreed that Ms Khan would post a note on Facebook addressing some of the reservations expressed by “certain quarters of the Malay-Muslim community”.

However, “we haven’t come to an understanding of what she should do with this anecdote,” Singh said.

When Ms Khan left the house, Singh said he reminded her to talk to her parents and that “we will look into another matter later”, implying a lie.

When questioned by the judge, he explained that he told Ms Khan this as he walked her to the gate of his house and that no one else was within earshot.

He said he did not tell Ms Khan to continue the story if she was pressured or to take the lie to her grave. Ms. Khan had testified that Singh told her to do both things.

Singh explained that he was very confident that the government would look into Ms Khan’s story.

When asked why, he said: “Given what MOS Desmond said, he made it clear that they want to continue with this, saying it will not be cancelled.”

“The other issue, of course, is that I know how the PAP (People’s Action Party) works and whenever there is a chance to correct an opposition MP or be tough on the opposition, they will jump at the chance.”

Singh said he didn’t make a specific decision at that meeting about what to do about lying, but shared that he thought he knew the issue would need to be clarified.

“But due to Ms. Khan’s condition, in my opinion, I decided it would be better for her to resolve the situation on her own and then we will deal with the matter when she is ready,” he said.

However, he said he did not tell Ms Khan at the August 8, 2021 meeting that the false anecdote needed to be cleared up.

AUGUST 10, 2021, MEETING WITH LOCH AND NATHAN.

On August 10, 2021, Singh met with former WP employees Ms Law and Mr Nathan, Ms Khan’s confidantes and aides within the party.

He told the court for the first time the reason for the meeting: Since July that year, Ms Lo had sent out emails “grieving”, or making formal complaints, against four WP members and volunteers.

Mr Singh said Ms Law considered their online speech “inappropriate” and believed the party should have clear guidelines on what its members and volunteers could say online.

He said Ms Lo sent a second email on August 2, 2021, repeating her complaint, after which Singh arranged to meet with her.

On August 10, 2021, Singh said Ms Lo arrived first and shared with him details about sexual assault victims “and how they tend to lie”.

“From my meeting… earlier with Ms. Khan, I knew that Ms. Law and Mr. Nathan already knew that Ms. Khan had lied in Parliament, and so I understood that the topic concerned Ms. Khan,” Singh said.

He said he had not discussed the meeting with Ms Khan on August 8, 2021 with Ms Lo.

He said Ms. Lo did not ask him whether the false anecdote would come up again, contrary to Ms. Lo’s testimony.

Singh said that when he first heard the proposal, Ms Lo asked him whether the issue would come up again in the courtroom.

Singh also denied making the comment attributed to him by Mr Nathan that “some men in the community, conservative religious people, would not want an MP to be raped”.

He said that he had not said this and that he first heard of this suggestion when Mr Nathan gave evidence about it in court.

WHAT HE WAS DOING AT THAT TIME

Singh explained that the period in question at the time was “in my opinion, probably the busiest period for us this entire semester, even to date.”

He said the Progress Singapore Party (PSP) has been asked to submit a proposal for the Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA) in July 2021.

Singh said it was the “most important political issue” in Singapore at the time, there was a lot of heat surrounding conversations on the issue, and that WP had learned from a parliamentary email that the PSP would submit a motion on the matter at the end of August. 2021.

Even though it was a PSP proposal, the WP “is the largest opposition party in Parliament, although it is still very small, and at that time we had not laid out an official position on CECA,” Singh said.

“Because this was such a sensitive political issue, it was important for WP to show leadership on this issue and the issue took a significant period of time,” he said.

Then, in September, the Foreign Intervention (Countermeasures) Act (FICA) was introduced in Parliament for the first time, Singh said.

“This is a sister law to POFMA (Protecting Online Falsehoods and Manipulation Act) – both of which grew out of the Select Committee on Premeditated Online Falsehoods, which was created several years earlier. WP objected to POFMA,” he said.

WP was concerned that similar objections could be applied to FICA and the bill would need to be looked at very carefully, Singh said.

“Again, at the time in question this has generated a lot of public interest, there are articles in newspapers, significant exchanges between people, concern about what powers will be given to the government,” he said.

He explained that the WP had decided that it would oppose the bill, deciding to submit amendments to the entire bill.

In addition, he was busy with party affairs and city council affairs.

“Like most Singaporeans, you have problems at home. At that point, I think my daughter didn’t get a placement in Primary 1, so my wife and I were just looking for a second option for her,” he said. said.

While preparing for the FICA debate, Singh said he came across a parliamentary discussion about justifying what is said in parliament and not making unfounded comments on the record. Then it occurred to him that he had not talked to Ms. Han about the lie and that the problem was still not resolved.

He then sent an email to all WP MPs on 1 October 2021, reminding them of the importance of being able to back up and defend what they said in Parliament, or risk being called to the CC.

Singh confirmed that the email was addressed to Ms Khan and that I believed it was “the start of a process to let her know that this matter is still unresolved”.

OCTOBER 3, 2021, MEETING WITH M.S. KHANOM

On October 3, 2021, Singh went to Ms. Khan’s house with his wife.

“I wanted to talk to her to give her my opinion that she will be returning to Parliament for the first time since this anecdote was published on August 3, and I wanted to share with her what I think might arise question,” he said.

He said he was unaware that Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam would make a ministerial statement on October 4, 2021, demanding answers from Ms Khan.