SINGAPORE, Nov 4 — Former Workers’ Party (WP) Member of Parliament Raeesah Khan has given evidence to the Committee of Privileges that she had been told by WP leaders to stick to a lie she had made in Parliament yesterday. 

She also testified under oath that she was told by the leaders — WP chief Pritam Singh, chairman Sylvia Lim and vice-chairman Faisal Manap — that if she and the party could get away with it, there was no need to clarify the lie.

These were detailed in a report that the Committee of Privileges has submitted to Parliament and made public on the Parliament website. Apart from the report, the video recordings of all the hearings were also made available publicly. 

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The committee, chaired by Speaker of Parliament Tan Chuan-Jin, was looking into Raeesah’s conduct after she admitted on Nov 1 that she had lied in Parliament. This was over a claim that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station where the victim was treated insensitively.

Raeesah, then an MP for Sengkang Group Representation Constituency (GRC), made the claim about the sexual assault victim in Parliament in August. After that, she turned down the repeated requests by the Ministry of Home Affairs and the police to provide more information so that they could identify the case.

During her admission on Nov 1, Raeesah said that she was a survivor of a sexual assault herself and had heard about the alleged victim’s experience during a women’s support group she attended. 

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On Thursday, Singh revealed in a press conference that WP leaders knew in August that Raeesah had lied. However, the party did not act on it any earlier because he had wanted to give her time to talk to her family about the matter, and because she had to be the one to correct the untruth in Parliament.

This account was disputed by Raeesah, who gave evidence to the Committee of Privileges on Thursday and Friday. 

She also disagreed with Singh’s assertion during the press conference that she was ordered to clarify the truth in Parliament in October but she had acted contrary to it.

Raeesah told the Committee of Privileges that there was no order for her to clarify the facts in October and no one from WP advised her to tell the truth.

During the WP press conference, Singh also said that the party’s disciplinary panel had told Raeesah that if she did not resign on her own accord, she would be expelled from WP.

Raeesah said that this was not said to her. When she met the panel on Nov 29, it was suggested to her that she should resign, “as it was for her well-being and because she had lost the support of her Sengkang GRC MPs”, the Committee of Privileges’ report stated.

What WP leaders said when they found out she lied

Based on the video recording of the hearings, Raeesah said that on August 7, she spoke briefly with Singh on the phone and informed him that her statement in Parliament on August 3 was untrue. The next day, she met with Singh, Lim and Faisal. 

She said that the three WP leaders reacted with “incredibile disappointment” and “a lot of anger” but there was “some compassion as well”. 

She noted that Singh’s initial reaction was for her to come clean to the Committee of Privileges but he changed his mind after she explained the circumstances that led her to lie.

In the end, the three WP leaders told her that:

The best thing for her to do would be to continue with the narrative that she had already given in Parliament on August 3 (meaning, keep to the lie)

If Raeesah and the WP could get away with it, there was no need to clarify the lie. If the matter was brought up again, there would also be no need for her to clarify and there was no need for the truth to be told

On August 8, Raeesah also told Loh Pei Ying, her secretarial assistant, and Yudhishthra Nathan, a volunteer with WP, what had transpired at her meeting with the three WP leaders. 

She told them in a WhatsApp message that Singh, Lim and Faisal “agreed that the best thing to do is to take the information to the grave”. 

On October 3, Singh visited Raeesah at her home and told her that if she kept to her existing narrative, there would be no judgement by him, Raeesah said.

Raeesah told the Committee of Privileges that she received an email from the police dated October 7, inviting her to assist them in investigating the matters she had raised on August 3 in Parliament. 

She testified that she then sought advice from Singh and Lim, and they “directed her not to respond to the police and to ignore the requests, as the police could not compel (Raeesah) to speak with the police”. 

Raeesah told the committee she was concerned that she would be giving a statement without privileges if she had gone to the police, “as opposed to making a clarification in Parliament, where she would have privileges”. — TODAY