Pritam Singh's lawyer confronts Raeesah Khan on her 'lies'
Defence lawyer Andre Jumabhoy tried to position former Workers’ Party (WP) MP Raeesah Khan as a serial liar on the second day of Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s trial.
The defence lawyer set out to prove during Khan’s cross-examination that she did know what Singh meant when he requested her to substantiate part of her now infamous anecdote in Parliament which was investigated and found to be untrue.
The anecdote involved her accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station where she claimed to witness the victim being treated insensitively.
“In terms of that anecdote, you had put yourself in the police station, but you weren’t there,” Jumabhoy said.
“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,” Jumabhoy said.
Jumabhoy then showed text messages between Singh and Khan after the latter’s speech to Parliament which contained the untrue anecdote. In the text, Singh wrote: “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.”
Khan’s response to the text: “I thought I edited it enough to remove this possibility.”
Jumabhoy queried why she had then said “no” earlier when asked if she made an edit based on Singh’s comment.
Jumabhoy also sought to show Khan had lied several times to Singh when he pressed her for more details surrounding the woman in her story.
“In one message, I think you’ve managed to lie about four times,” Jumabhoy said in reference to Khan’s response to Singh who had asked if she was still in contact with the woman.
Khan told Singh she could only recall that the incident was three years ago in the early part of the year, and that she had met the victim at the bus stop near the Bedok police station.
“I wouldn’t call it impressive, I would call it fear,” Khan said.