Pritam Singh ropes in former state counsel to represent him in court case over parliamentary statements

Pritam Singh engages former state counsel to defend him in court

Leader of the Opposition (LO) Pritam Singh has appointed a former state counsel to represent him in the ongoing court case over alleged lies he made to a parliamentary committee in relation to the Raeesah Khan controversy.

This comes after he pleaded not guilty to two counts of lying to a parliamentary committee in March.

The Workers’ Party (WP) chief had his pre-trial conference today (17 April) and has enlisted Andre Jumabhoy LLC as his defence team.

According to The Straits Times (ST), another pre-trial conference will happen on 31 May.

Pritam Singh engages law firm of former state counsel Andre Jumabhoy

Based on the Singapore Courts hearing list, Mr Andre Jumabhoy and Mr Aristotle Emmanuel Eng Zhen Yang of Andre Jumabhoy LLC are Mr Singh’s representing lawyers for this case.

Mr Jumabhoy worked for Singapore’s Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) from 2011 to 2016.

Source: Andre Jumabhoy LLC

His law firm’s website states that he became the Deputy Senior State Counsel in 2014 while with the AGC.

Mr Jumabhoy’s expertise lies in white-collar crimes such as insider trading, bribery, high-value frauds, money laundering, and breach of directors’ duties, but he also has experience with criminal cases such as murder, drug trafficking, corruption, and fraud offences.

One of his most high-profile cases was the “sex-for-grades” trial in 2016, which involved an ex-NUS law professor, for which Mr Jumabhoy was a prosecutor.

Pleaded not guilty to 2 charges of lying to a parliamentary committee

This comes after Mr Singh pleaded not guilty to two counts of lying to a parliamentary committee on 19 March.

The charges had to do with statements he gave in 2021 to the Committee of Privileges (COP) convened to investigate ex-WP Member of Parliament (MP) Raeesah Khan over lies she told the House in 2020.

On 3 August 2021, Ms Khan claimed that she had accompanied a sexual assault victim to a police station, where the victim claimed she was treated insensitively. Ms Khan then made the same allegations in the House about two months later.

Her claims later turned out to be untrue.

During the investigations, Ms Khan said that she had confessed the lie to WP leadership on 8 Aug, but was reportedly told to “retain the narrative that she began”.

She also alleged that Mr Singh told her to “take it to the grave”.

However, Mr Singh subsequently refuted the claims. Instead, he maintained that he had given Ms Khan time to clarify her lie as he was sympathetic to the fact that she had been a victim of sexual assault.

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Featured image adapted from Lianhe Zaobao and Andre Jumabhoy LLC.