This week's Spotlight award goes to Jermyn Chow, the defence correspondent of The Straits Times.

To cut the long story short, this is what has occurred so far:

Family lost civil lawsuit last week: The family of the late Private Dominique Sarron Lee, who died in 2012 from an allergic reaction to smoke grenades during a military exercise, lost their civil lawsuit that was brought against the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) and two of its officers last week (March 3, 2016).

Mother's letter went viral online: Subsequently, the heart-breaking letter by Felicia Seah, Lee’s mother, was widely circulated online and has resulted in a fundraising campaign to defray the legal costs Lee’s family incurred.

SAF and Defence Minister responded: This week, SAF clarified the issues on Facebook (Mar 7), reminding Singaporeans about the key findings from the Committee of Inquiry (COI) in 2012 and the Coroner’s Inquiry (CI) in 2013. On the same day, Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen announced on his Facebook that MINDEF should waive the legal costs that the family had to pay.

Family responded to SAF's clarifications: In their response (Mar 8), the family said that they had not accepted any compensation offer from Mindef/ SAF, and noted that Mindef/ SAF did not apologise to the family in person.

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Okay, let's get on with the story.

In The Straits Times' latest article about the case, Chow found three important pieces of information that was otherwise unknown to the general public.

Info 1: Legal costs not fully waived yet: The Defence Ministry and one of the officers, Captain Najib Hanuk Bin Muhamad Jalal, said that they would waive legal costs amounting to $16,000. The other officer, Major Chia Thye Siong, had not confirmed whether he will waive the remaining $6,000 in legal fees. Netizens noted that Chia was promoted from Captain to Major a year after the incident.

Info 2: The amount of money that Lee's family accepted previously: We now know that MINDEF provided a one-off welfare grant - $20,000 - to Lee's mother in 2012. This is given to families of servicemen who pass away.

Info 3: The details on whether and how the two officers were punished: This was also the question that Lee's family posed in their response yesterday, as they highlighted that "MINDEF/SAF has yet to address the family’s question on whether justice was done".

Chow found out that "both servicemen were redeployed to appointments that did not supervise soldiers in training or operations".

We know that command positions - supervising soldiers in training and operations - are perceived as more important positions in SAF. So the redeployment could very well be perceived as punishment meted out by SAF.

Yes, it is still a vague statement from MINDEF but they have caved in to the persistent questioning from Chow.

How significant was this? You just have to observe the contrast over at TODAY.

Yup, TODAY was stonewalled by MINDEF.

Maybe this is the reason why Lee's family donated the money raised in fundraising campaign to The Straits Times School Pocket Money Fund rather than the MediaCorp Cares programme.

You can read Chow's full Straits Times article here.

Related articles:

Dominique Sarron Lee’s family opts to donate money raised in campaign to School Pocket Money Fund

Defence Minister Ng Eng Hen said Mindef ‘should waive the costs to the family’

Want to help Dominique Sarron Lee’s family? You can donate money to support them

5 key points by SAF following mum’s viral letter to late son who died during National Service in 2012

Mother of late NSF who died in 2012 during military exercise turns to SDP’s Chee Soon Juan for help

Mother pens letter to late son who died during National Service in 2012 for failing him

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