Lawyer Lim Tean is set to cross-examine Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in court again as the latter’s defamation suit against TOC chief editor Terry Xu goes to trial on Monday morning (30 November).
PM Lee’s defamation suit against Mr Xu pertains to an article published on TOC on 15 August last year, which contained alleged defamatory statements made by PM Lee’s siblings Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling in relation to the 38 Oxley Road dispute
Mr Lim in a Facebook post on Friday (27 November) said that a “whole week has been set aside” for Mr Xu’s trial, which will take place until 4 December.
Mr Xu’s trial will commence in Court 4B in the Supreme Court Building, the lawyer noted.
In the same courtroom at 2.30 pm, Mr Lim added, Justice Aedit Abdullah will hear the final oral arguments from both sides in a separate libel suit filed by PM Lee against veteran blogger Leong Sze Hian.
“Lee Hsien Loong is represented by the same set of Lawyers who represented him in the Leong Sze Hian case,” said Mr Lim.
Justice Aedit will “no doubt will hand down a written judgment after deliberation”, he added.
Mr Lim said that those wishing to secure a seat in court in the public gallery for the two open hearings “have to start queuing very early”.
“And I mean very early!” He stressed.
Members of the public queued up as early as 4.30 am on the first day of Mr Leong’s trial on 6 October. By 7 am that day, all 20 seats available to the public were already taken up.
The defamation suit against Mr Leong concerns an article the blogger shared on his personal Facebook Timeline titled “Breaking News: Singapore Lee Hsien Loong Becomes 1MDB’s Key Investigation Target – Najib Signed Several Unfair Agreements with Hsien Loong In Exchange For Money Laundering”.
The article, published by “Malaysian-based social news network” The Coverage, alleged that PM Lee had entered “several unfair agreements” with Najib Razak, who was the Malaysian Prime Minister at the time the deals purportedly took place, “including the agreement to build the Singapore-Malaysia High-Speed Rail”, according to court documents.
It is noted in Mr Leong’s submissions that he did not include any accompanying text alongside the article at the time he shared the article on 7 November 2018.