Singapore — Lawyer M Ravi has responded to the letter from the Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) on Tuesday (Oct 20) demanding an apology for his criticism of the prosecution of drug accused Gobi Avedian earlier that day outside the Supreme Court.
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In a Facebook post on Thursday (Oct 22), Mr Ravi wrote: “I have just sent my response to Mr Hri Kumar of AGC who demanded an unconditional apology and threatened to make a complaint on my fair criticism of the unfair nature of the prosecution of Gobi and the matters raised in his letter.”
He added: “In today’s letter, I have demanded an apology to Gobi and his family and myself for reasons that I have set out in the letter.”
Mr Ravi also noted that regardless of whether Attorney-General Lucien Wong, Deputy AG Hri Kumar or Senior Counsel Mohamed Faizal Abdul Kadir apologised, he had strict instructions to commence proceedings.
Gobi, 32, escaped the death penalty on Monday (Oct 19) after the Court of Appeal reinstated his original High Court sentence of 15 years in jail and 10 strokes of the cane.
After the court ruling, Mr Ravi gave an interview with socio-political website The Online Citizen, during which he referred to the prosecution’s handling of his client’s case as “overzealous”.
In a letter to Mr Ravi later that day, the AGC responded by saying calling his claims “categorically false” and adding that he had “sought to mischaracterise the reasons for the decision issued by the Court of Appeal”.
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The AGC also demanded that he apologise and unconditionally retract allegations he had made about the prosecutors. /TISG