SINGAPORE – The written judgment on the libel trial involving Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and blogger Leong Sze Hian is expected to be given early next year.
“Generally, it will take two to three months. You won’t have it before January,” defence counsel Lim Tean of Carson Law Chambers said on the sidelines of today’s proceedings here.
Lee, 68, in his capacity as a private citizen, had sued Leong over a post shared on his Facebook page in November 2018, which contained a link to an article by Malaysian news site The Coverage.
Although the post had already been removed, Lee chose to go ahead to sue Leong on the basis that “removal does not expunge defamation”.
The plaintiff said the online article contained “false and clearly libellous” allegations linking him to the 1Malaysia Development Bhd money-laundering scandal.
The content of the article was taken from the States Times Review page.
“I will endeavour to issue my written judgment as expeditiously as possible,” Justice Aedit Abdullah said at the end of today’s proceeding.
The hearing of the libel suit Lee instituted against Leong began in early October this year.
Today is for the final oral arguments in the case after two rounds of written submissions from the counsel.
Asked on his chances of winning the case, Lim said: “We have done our best. I hate to make an assessment but I am happy with the arguments this afternoon.”
Earlier, in the morning, the other libel trial between Lee and Terry Xu, The Online Citizen editor, was before Justice Audrey Lim.
Lee was represented by the same team of lawyers from Davinder Singh Chambers LLC who represented him in Leong’s case while Lim appeared for Xu.
The week-long trial kicked off with Lee being cross-examined by Lim.
The case is related to claims made by The Online Citizen in an article titled "PM Lee's wife, Ho Ching weirdly shares article on cutting ties with family members" published on August 15, 2019.
One of the allegations was that Lee misled his father, the late Lee Kuan Yew, into thinking that the Singapore government had gazetted the 38, Oxley Road property and that it was futile for Kuan Yew to keep his directive to demolish it. – Bernama, November 30, 2020
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