Pritam Singh says message to Raeesah Khan ‘proves’ he wanted her to come clean

Singapore — Workers’ Party chief Pritam Singh says he told the father of Ms Raeesah Khan that she needed to take ownership and responsibility for the falsehoods she told in Parliament. 

He said this on Wednesday, when he was recalled by Parliament’s Committee of Privileges. It was the second time in a week that he had testified before the committee.

Mr Singh emphasized his intent to get Ms Khan to come clean from the start, contrary to her testimony to the COP that she had been told by the party leadership to stick to her lies.

Ms Khan’s father is former presidential aspirant Farid Khan, chairman of Bourbon Offshore Asia, a regional marine services company. He meant to run for president in the 2017 Presidential Election which was reserved for Malays, but both he and Second Chance Properties CEO Salleh Marican were rejected by the Presidential Elections Committee which ruled they did not meet the updated eligibility criteria.

The WP chief said he talked to Ms Khan’s parents after she had informed them of her situation. She had lied in Parliament on Aug 3, saying she had accompanied a rape victim to a police station and heard an officer make inappropriate remarks. She repeated this lie on Oct 4.

On Nov 1, Ms Khan confessed to Parliament that she had actually learnt of this case in a support group for sexual assault victims. She said that she, too, had survived  sexual assault at 18 while studying overseas, but never told her family.

She resigned from the WP on Nov 30. However, when she appeared before the committee, she claimed that Mr Singh, party chair Sylvia Lim and vice-chair Faisal Manap told her to stick to her story instead of admitting she had lied.

Mr Singh, Ms Lim and Mr Manap have denied this.

The WP chief submitted about 100 pages of documents to the committee. These include communications with Mr Khan.

He told the COP on Dec 15, “Ownership and responsibility are quite a major part of my message to Mr Khan,” and added that “those words were really the central focus of what I expected Ms Khan to do had the matter come up post Oct 3”.

The WP leadership told the committee that although they had been aware since Aug 8 that Ms Khan had lied, they did not urge her to come clean right away in order to give her the space to let her family know what happened to her.

But then she repeated the lie on Oct 4 when questioned by Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam. So the WP top leaders decided with Ms Khan that she would need to set the record straight at the very next Parliament sitting. /TISG

Read also: Sylvia Lim: Raeesah Khan ‘doubled down’ & repeated her lie on Oct 4

Sylvia Lim: Raeesah Khan ‘doubled down’ & repeated her lie on Oct 4