Sylvia Lim says time was needed to structure Raeesah Khan’s clarification after she repeated lie in Parliament: COP report

SINGAPORE: When Ms Raeesah Khan repeated on Oct 4 a lie that she had told in Parliament, Workers' Party chair Sylvia Lim did not think it was an option to have Ms Khan clarify the untruth at a parliamentary sitting the next day, according to a report from the Committee of Privileges (COP) released on Tuesday evening (Dec 14).

Ms Lim, who is MP for Aljunied GRC, testified on Monday before the COP. The fourth special report on the hearings contains the main points from the testimonies of Ms Lim and of Sengkang MP Associate Professor Jamus Lim.

Ms Lim told the COP that time was needed to carefully structure Ms Khan’s clarification, and make sure that she was comfortable with it.

Ms Lim also cited what happened on Aug 3, when Ms Khan first told the lie in Parliament. At the time, Mr Singh had drafted a clarification for Ms Khan, which she delivered later that same day.

The clarification, in which Ms Khan "said it was Bedok police station and so on and forth" was one which "further told a lie", said Ms Lim in her evidence included in the video of the session, which was also released on Tuesday evening.

"So I would say that haste in this circumstance, even on Oct 4, is not wise and we needed to do it calmly and with due deliberation," said Ms Lim.

Ms Lim testified that while she had known from Aug 8 that Ms Khan had lied in Parliament, she was initially not involved in handling the matter.

Ms Lim was also asked about a WhatsApp message that Ms Khan had sent to her assistants Ms Loh Pei Ying and Mr Yudhishthra Nathan, which said that WP leaders had told Ms Khan to "take the information to the grave".

Ms Lim disagreed with Ms Khan’s evidence.

The report also stated that the COP has asked Ms Lim if she could rule out that any of Ms Khan’s mental conditions (including dissociation) may have caused Ms Khan to make the statement - "take the information to the grave" - to which Ms Lim said she could not rule anything out.

Ms Lim explained to the COP that because WP secretary-general Pritam Singh knew Ms Khan best, and was guiding her, she left it to Mr Singh to follow up with Ms Khan.

Ms Lim was not aware that Mr Singh had gone to see Ms Khan on Oct 3 and only learned of it the next day. Ms Khan and Mr Singh have given contradicting accounts of that meeting.

Ms Khan had told the COP that on Oct 3, Mr Singh had told her there would be "no judgment" from him if she were to "continue" the false narrative.

However, Mr Singh said in his hearing held last week that Ms Khan had misinterpreted his words. According to Mr Singh, he had said that “if the issue came up”, Ms Khan had “to take responsibility and ownership of the issue”, and if she did so, he “will not judge” her.

Regarding this meeting, Ms Lim provided the COP with a copy of the notes she had taken during the WP’s Disciplinary Panel interviews with Ms Khan in November.

She told the COP that these notes were as close to verbatim as possible, and highlighted this exchange between Mr Singh and Ms Khan about the Oct 3 meeting:

Pritam Singh: Before Oct session, I met you + I told you it was your call. Did need to tell the truth in Parl occur to you?
Raeesah Khan: Yes but consumed with guilt + own experience. Thought it wouldn’t come up.
Pritam Singh: Can’t lie right?
Raeesah Khan: Yes.

Ms Lim was asked for her views on Mr Singh's words: “I told you it was your call”. She said that Mr Singh seems to have told Ms Khan that it was for Ms Khan to decide what to do on Oct 4, if the issue arose in Parliament.

But later in the hearing, "she (Ms Lim) said she could not 'fathom' the possibility that Mr Singh would have given Ms Khan the choice between telling the truth and lying again," according to the COP report.

"VERY FRUSTRATED"

On Oct 4, Ms Khan repeated her lie in Parliament during an exchange with Home Affairs and Law Minister K Shanmugam. She said that an anecdote she had told about accompanying a sexual assault victim to a police station was true, but declined to give more details about it.

She had said that the victim came out crying because a police officer had made comments about her dressing and the fact that she had been drinking.

But on Nov 1, Ms Khan admitted in Parliament that she had heard the anecdote in a support group but lied that she had accompanied the victim as she did not want to reveal that she herself had been a victim of sexual assault.

When Ms Khan lied again on Oct 4, Ms Lim was present and she said that she was "very frustrated by what had happened". Instead of correcting the parliamentary record, through Ms Khan’s exchange with Mr Shanmugam, there had been a “doubling down” on the untruth, making the situation even worse, said the report.

LIM'S ACCOUNT OF OCT 12 MEETING AT PRITAM SINGH'S HOUSE

Ms Lim also gave an account of an Oct 12 meeting between her, Ms Khan and Mr Singh at Mr Singh's house. She said that at that meeting, initially, Ms Khan indicated some reluctance to correct the record.

When the COP asked whether Ms Lim had, at that point, clarified with Mr Singh what he had discussed and agreed with Khan, Ms Lim said that she had not done so, as it never crossed her mind that Mr Singh and Ms Khan would have agreed to “double down” on the lie.

Ms Lim said that she could also not fathom the possibility of Mr Singh giving Ms Khan the option of choosing between telling the truth, or continuing the lie, the report said.

Ms Lim testified that both she and Mr Singh were angry and told Ms Khan to make the correction and said that Ms Khan had no choice but to come clean at the next available Parliament sitting in November. After discussion, Ms Khan agreed that this would be the best thing to do, the report said.

"Ms Lim confirmed that this was the first time that an express commitment was made for Ms Khan to clarify the lie in Parliament," said the report.

DISCIPLINARY PANEL INTERVIEWS

After Ms Khan delivered her statement clarifying the untruths in Parliament on Nov 1, WP set up a Disciplinary Panel to look into the issue.

To prepare for this, Ms Khan met the WP Central Executive Committee (CEC) on Oct 29 to discuss her draft statement. This was the first time the CEC found out that Ms Khan had lied in Parliament, according to Ms Lim's testimony.

The CEC was not told that Mr Singh, Ms Lim and WP vice-chair Faisal Manap had been aware of Ms Khan’s lie from Aug 8. They were also the three members of the disciplinary panel set up by WP.

The panel held two interviews with Ms Khan, on Nov 8 and 29. At these interviews, when asked why the untruth was included in the Aug 3 statement, Ms Khan’s explanation was that she was "dissociated" and did not realise what she was doing.

They also talked about the actions Ms Khan was taking to address her psychological needs, and Ms Khan submitted documents from a psychotherapist saying that she was undergoing therapy.

Lastly, they talked about whether and, if so, why Ms Khan wanted to remain in the Party, as an MP and a CEC member, the report said.

The panel also verified that Ms Khan had attended sessions held by a women’s survivor group in 2018 and 2019, as she had claimed.

WHEN CEC LEARNED OF MATTER

The evidence given by Associate Professor Lim said that the WP CEC was only informed at an extraordinary meeting on Oct 29 of Ms Khan's lies in Parliament.

He also said that he did not know until much later that Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal had known from August that Ms Khan had lied.

Assoc Prof Lim said that apart from what he was told at the Oct 29 meeting, he generally learned of the facts about this matter only when they became public, the report said.

He was asked if, as a member of the CEC, he would have expected the committee to be told that Ms Khan had already confessed to the party leadership in August.

The COP also asked if he expected a disciplinary panel to be "disinterested from the episode and the surrounding circumstances, so that they had no personal interest in the matter which they were supposed to investigate", said the report.

Assoc Prof Lim replied that he trusted the party leadership to inform the CEC of all material facts.

"Given that the Party leaders had not told the CEC about their involvement in the matter from an early stage, A/P Lim trusted that these facts were not material," the report said.

According to the summary of his testimony, he said that if Ms Khan had planned to subsequently confess, then her prior confessions to the Party leaders would not have been material.

If, on the other hand, Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Faisal had instructed Ms Khan to “take the information to the grave”, as Ms Khan had told the COP, then their suppression of these facts and of their own involvement, would have been "material information that had to be disclosed".

The proceedings of the COP were adjourned to Wednesday.