Court orders Lee Hsien Yang to pay $400,000 to PAP Ministers in damages

SINGAPORE: Lee Hsien Yang, the estranged younger brother of former Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, has been directed by a court to pay S$400,000 to two ministers in a defamation lawsuit, according to a judgment released on Friday (24 May).

Justice Goh Yihan, who presided over the case, said in his judgment that Lee Hsien Yang’s allegations against the ministers – K Shanmugam and Vivian Balakrishnan, were “of the gravest kind”.

The judge wrote that the allegations “go towards their personal integrity, professional reputation, honour, and core attributes of their personalities.”

The defamation case stems from references Mr Lee made about the Ridout Road controversy, which involved the rental of state properties by the two ministers, on his personal Facebook page. Both ministers were cleared of any misconduct by the Government, which found no evidence of abuse of position for personal gain, in June 2023.

In July 2023, the government ordered Mr Lee to amend the post that the law ministry claimed contained inaccuracies regarding the controversy. The defamation suit was initiated after Mr Lee declined to retract what he said and reaffirmed his stance in another social media post.

Mr Lee publicly challenged the Ministers to file a defamation case in the UK, since that it is where he was when he published the contentious posts, but the lawsuit proceeded in the Singapore courts.

The judge awarded each minister S$150,000 in general damages and an additional S$50,000 in aggravated damages.

Commenting on the judgment, Mr Lee told Reuters: “The facts are the facts. The two ministers claim to have wanted to clear their names yet declined offers to take this to a London court or an independent international tribunal.”

This latest legal battle adds another chapter to the long-standing public feud between the Lee brothers, which became public in 2017.

While the dispute initially revolved around disagreements over the family home owned by their late father, Singapore’s founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, the rift between the brothers has only grown in the intervening years.

The younger Mr Lee, who is living in the UK with his wife, aligned himself with an opposition party during the 2020 polls and contemplated a run for the Singapore presidency last year.

The court ruling, meanwhile, comes days after the elder Mr Lee handed over the prime ministership to Lawrence Wong, marking Singapore’s first leadership transition in two decades.

TISG/