Ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim ordered to take the stand next Monday
[UPDATE Thursday 21 March 5:38pm]
Former Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) chief Peter Lim has a case to answer to and will have take the stand next Monday in the latest development of the sex-for-contracts trial.
Judge Hamidah Ibrahim gave the ruling on Thursday afternoon after accepting that the nature of the 52-year-old's relationship with star witness Angie Pang Chor Mui, 49, was questionable.
While Lim's defence lawyer said the couple's relationship was purely personal, deputy public prosecutor Tan Kiat Pheng argued that Pang had no idea who his family or friends were and that they only had up to 4 lunches over the course of their friendship.
He added that business information about the products of Pang's company, NIMROD Engineering, of which she was general manager at the time, was also shared during these lunches.
Earlier on, defence lawyer Hamidul Haq argued for the case to be dismissed as there was no link between the oral sex his client gave to Lim was not linked to any business interests.
He said that at the time the act was committed, the pair could not have predicted that there would be an SCDF tender for a radiation portal machine as a result of the Fukushima earthquake in March 2011.
However, prosecutor Pheng said that under the Prevention of Corruption Act, as long as there is a reason to believe or suspect that there was criminal intent, Lim could still be charged with an offence.
He further reasoned that the sex act was not linked to a specific favour but the incident was the main reason that benefitted NIMROD because Pang was the first person Lim called to inform about the tender.
He said "oral sex was in exchange for an opportunity that may arise in the future" which in this case, refers to the quake leading up to the tender.
Tip-off
Pang admitted on Wednesday that she received a tip-off about a tender process seven days before it was made public but didn’t inform her company about it.
But despite asking one of her colleagues to research and get more quotes about the machines in order to "help" Lim, Pang claimed she did not inform her own boss about the tender process for the radiation machines because she had no interest in getting her company to prepare a tender bid.
It was only two weeks into the tender process that her managing director, Tamil Selvan, whom she reportedly also had a intimate relationship, found out about the tender.
That left the company two weeks into the public one-month tender process to bid for the project, resulting in NIMROD submitting a late bid without sufficient information.
Earlier this week, Pang was grilled over her relationship with both her boss Tamil Selvan as well as her one-time sexual encounter with Lim. Several inconsistencies arose.
In her statements to the CPIB last year, she said Selvan was her “boyfriend”, adding that she held off further intimacy with Lim because she did not want to “betray” Selvan, whom she admitted on Tuesday to be her boyfriend over the past five years.
Another significant discrepancy lay in Pang’s reasons for giving oral sex to Lim — which on Monday she claimed was because she “liked him a lot”. Prosecutors quoted a further statement from her to the CPIB last year where she said it was a “mix(ed) feeling”, adding that she “did not want to antagonise him”.
She was also further quoted as saying, “It is not good for our friendship and maybe my company’s dealings with (the) SCDF.”
Related stories:
Woman in SCDF sex-for-contracts trial: I gave him oral sex
Sex-for-contracts trial: Star witness grilled over ‘intimate’ relationship with own boss
I didn't stop and analyse... I liked him a lot: woman in ex-SCDF chief Peter Lim's trial
