Leong Mun Wai Maintains That He Didn’t Intend To Cast Aspersions On Shanmugam & Teo Chee Hean
Leong Mun Wai, a Non-constituency Member of Parliament (NCMP), took the hot seat in Parliament earlier this week.
On Monday (20 Mar), he sparred with Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam over the public naming of Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee Suet Fern in a police investigation.
He then released a Facebook post that was addressed again in Parliament for alleged aspersions.
Mr Leong has since deleted the statements from his earlier post, effectively withdrawing them.
Deletes statements after consideration
On Thursday (23 Mar), Mr Leong released an explanation post to clarify his intentions.
In the post, he explained that he had put forth the original statements after deliberating Mr Shanmugam’s response in Parliament.
Addressing what the minister said, Mr Leong reiterated that he did not intend to “cast aspersions on the ministers nor act in an unparliamentary manner”.
Instead, he had made the points in the interest of the public.
Source: MCI Singapore on YouTube
Mr Leong then revealed that he had deleted the relevant statements from his Facebook post after some further consideration.
However, he decided that it was not “appropriate to delete the entire post”.
According to Mr Leong, his earlier post contained other pertinent points “to which no objection appears to have been made”.
Leong Mun Wai gets heat for alleged aspersions
In his earlier post, Mr Leong opined that Parliament should not be used as a platform to influence public sentiments on the Lee family dispute.
Source: Leong Mun Wai on Facebook
Subsequently, he said that Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean and Mr Shanmugam have “run the risk” of “colour (ing) public opinion on criminal proceedings”.
Additionally, Mr Leong stated that the latter is not in a position to prematurely form a judgment on the case.
He then said that there needs to be more transparency to make sure that there are no double standards.
Based on the edited post, in which Mr Leong underlined the parts he erased, he has deleted the above statements while standing by his other points.
Stands by his other points
In the post, he rebutted three points that Mr Shanmugam raised in Parliament explaining why the Lees were named.
Firstly, Mr Leong posited that under present circumstances, the Lees did not abscond from Singapore.
As such, they did not have to be publicly named.
Secondly, he believed that the Singapore public would be equally interested in the individuals arrested for the Keppel Offshore & Marine bribery case.
Lastly, he said that the facts of the Lees’ case could have been released in a public statement instead of in Parliament.
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Featured image adapted from MCI Singapore on YouTube.
