SINGAPORE: Singapore founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s youngest son, Lee Hsien Yang, has revealed that his love for his father and sister led him to make a hefty payment to two Government ministers after they sued him for defamation.
The defamation case stems from references Mr Lee made about the Ridout Road controversy, which involved the rental of state properties by Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam and Foreign Affairs Minister Vivian Balakrishnan, 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 is where he was when he published the contentious posts, but the lawsuit proceeded in the Singapore courts.
The judge who presided over the case ruled that Mr Lee’s allegations were “of the gravest kind” and awarded each minister S$150,000 in general damages and an additional S$50,000 in aggravated damages.
In an update on his Facebook page over the weekend, Mr Lee revealed that he had paid both ministers $619,335.53. Pointing out that this amount is equivalent to 13.6 months of rental for the two Ridout houses, Mr Lee said:
“My significant asset in Singapore is 38 Oxley Road. In order to try to honour my father’s wishes in connection with his home and to allow Wei Ling, who is ill, to continue to stay at 38 Oxley Road, I have made this payment to the Ministers.”
He added that it is “unfortunate that the ministers chose not to pursue the case in the English courts.”
This latest update appears to mark the end of another chapter to the long-standing public feud between Mr Lee and his elder brother, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong.
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 since the feud became public in 2017.
The younger Mr Lee, 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.