PM Lee seeks damages from Malaysian TOC author who wrote piece that was approved and published in 9 minutes

Singapore — Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong is now seeking damages for defamation from a Malaysian writer at The Online Citizen (TOC) over an article titled: “PM Lee’s Wife, Ho Ching weirdly shares article on cutting ties with family members”.

The writer, Ms Rubaashini Shunmuganathan, had been consistently served court papers from December 2019, but she failed to show up for the brief hearing for assessment of damages on Monday (May 31) over Zoom.

She also failed to appear for the lawsuit and was found liable for defamation on Dec 31, 2019.

According to court documents, TOC editor Terry Xu contacted Ms Rubaashini on the workplace messaging app Slack on Aug 15, 2019, to share the Facebook post by Mdm Ho.

Mr Xu said he “needed some creative writing”, and she replied four hours later with a draft of the article. Mr Xu replied to her saying “very good! no edits needed” and published the article nine minutes later.

Ms Rubaashini wrote about a “feud” between Mr Lee and his siblings, Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Dr Lee Wei Ling, over the family home at 38 Oxley Road.

Mr Xu has also been sued by Mr Lee over the publication of the offending article. His case went to trial in the High Court late last year, but a judge is yet to decide if he is liable for damages.

On Oct 21, Mr Lee’s lawyers sent Ms Rubaashini a letter through email, Facebook Messenger and LinkedIn, asking her to “immediately take steps to remove the article”, publish an apology and compensate him with damages, a TODAY reported.

However, she did not respond. Then Mr Lee filed a writ of summons to commence civil proceedings on Nov 5.

On Dec 4, a process server employed by a Malaysian law firm personally served her the writ, a statement of claim and a court order granting Mr Lee leave to serve the documents outside Singapore’s jurisdiction.

When served court documents at her Selangor address, she admitted to being Rubaashini. Subsequently, when she did not enter an appearance, she was personally served several documents till Jan 22 this year.

In May, her brother claimed that she no longer lived at that address. The documents were also sent to her through her two email addresses but she has not responded.

In court on Monday (May 31), Senior Counsel Singh noted that in January, her name was once again included in the About Us page on TOC’s website and she has continued to contribute articles.

Mr Lee’s lawyers noted that where prime ministers have been accused of dishonesty or misleading others or both, the Singapore courts have awarded damages between S$300,000 and S$330,000. /TISG