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SINGAPORE – Former Workers’ Party (WP) cadre Yudhishthra Nathan was cross-examined on Oct 21, the sixth day of WP chief and Leader of the Opposition Pritam Singh’s trial.
Singh is fighting two charges over his alleged lies to a parliamentary committee convened in November 2021 to investigate former Sengkang WP MP Raeesah Khan’s untruth in Parliament.
Ms Khan had, on Aug 3, 2021, told Parliament about how she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim was treated insensitively. She repeated the claim before the House on Oct 4 the same year, before admitting to her lie on Nov 1, 2021.
Mr Nathan, currently a PhD student at a local university, was a WP member from 2016 to 2022. He served in the party’s media team, policy team, youth wing, as well as its grassroots team in Sengkang, and assisted Ms Khan in her duties as MP.
Here are the key points that came up as Singh’s lawyer, Mr Andre Jumabhoy, cross-examined Mr Nathan:
1. Nathan wanted Khan to ‘actively maintain the lie’
The court heard that before attending a meeting with Singh and Ms Loh at the WP chief’s house on Oct 12, 2021, Mr Nathan was concerned that the party leaders had not come up with a proper plan for Ms Khan to come clean about her lie.
Mr Nathan’s position at that time was therefore for her to “actively maintain the lie”, he testified.
When Deputy Principal District Judge Luke Tan asked what he envisaged Ms Khan doing in “actively maintaining the lie”, Mr Nathan said she “may go and clarify the age, but not come out and say she had lied about going to the police station”.
Mr Jumabhoy was questioning Mr Nathan about a WhatsApp message that he sent earlier that day suggesting Ms Khan should not give too many details about her anecdote and just clarify the age of the alleged sexual assault victim.
Mr Nathan told the court he could not recall if he said this in relation to what Ms Khan should say in Parliament, or what she should tell the police, given that Law and Home Affairs Minister K. Shanmugam had said the police would be looking into the anecdote by then.
Asked if he was aware at this stage that Ms Khan would have to attend police investigations, Mr Nathan said yes. “I was under the impression that party leaders (were) also not putting pressure on her to attend police investigations but I could be wrong about that,” he added.
Mr Nathan testified last week that he got into a phone call with Khan on Oct 12, 2021 afternoon, where she told him that Singh and Ms Lim wanted her to come clean, but were not sure if she should mention the context that she was a sexual assault victim when she did so.
Mr Nathan had told the court that his response to her was it “sounds like political suicide” to have an MP go to Parliament and admit she lied without explaining how she ended up lying in the first place.