Daniel De Costa

Singapore High Court Justice Aedit Abdullah upheld the convictions of Terry Xu, editor of The Online Citizen Asia (TOC), and contributor Daniel De Costa, in a criminal defamation case. The charges stemmed from a letter published on TOC that allegedly defamed members of the Cabinet. While their appeals against convictions were dismissed, their jail terms were replaced with fines. Justice Abdullah concluded that the phrase “present PAP leadership” refers to the Cabinet members, but disagreed that “corruption at the highest echelons” meant the Cabinet members were corrupt. Xu’s fine was set at S$8,000, while De Costa was fined S$10,000. De Costa’s three-month imprisonment sentence for the Computer Misuse Act (CMA) charge was maintained.