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Reform Party (RP)'s Charles Yeo will not be its Chairman for the time being following his arrest on Jan. 12, and has since responded to the coverage of his arrest on his online platforms.

Stepping aside as RP chairman

RP announced on Jan. 16 that its Central Executive Committee (CEC) has accepted Yeo's offer to "step aside as Chair until this is resolved".

While Yeo has not been charged with any offence, Yasmine Valentina, a member of the party's CEC, has been appointed as RP's Acting Chair.

The statement also wrote that Yeo believes that his arrest was a result of a complaint made by Joseph Chen, who "was presented as a potential candidate in 2015 but was found not suitable".

RP also noted that Chen had been bombarding the RP Sec-Gen Kenneth Jeyaretnam with "unpleasant and unwanted communications".

"Do not twist my words"

Yeo called out media coverage of his arrest for relating his comment about the "unusual" seizure of his phone with his claim that the police officers handled the matter unprofessionally.

"I didn't say that the seizure of the phone was unprofessional," wrote Yeo.

Although he stated that it is "routine practice" to do so in a police investigation, he said that "only relevant items can be seized".

According to him, the timeframe of alleged offences were from Nov. 2020 to Apr. 2021, and the phone was purchased months after, in July 2021.

Instead, he believes that the seizure of his phone along with his SIM card was done to "check on the identity of my sociopolitical supporters and intimidate them".

Further details about the arrest

In his recent post, Yeo gave more details about his claim that the police officers from the Commercial Affairs Department (CAD) were unprofessional.

The RP GE 2020 candidate for Ang Mo Kio GRC wrote that he had four hours of sleep on Jan. 12, the day police officers arrived at his door early in the morning.

They had refused to reschedule his interview, which was unlike his previous experiences involved in police investigations.

This time, Yeo said that "force was also used on [him] to throw [him] into a lockup for 15 hours" on the day of his arrest.

Police "categorically reject" claims by Yeo

In response to Mothership queries, the police confirmed on Jan. 15 that investigations are ongoing against Whitefield Law Corporation for alleged offences of criminal breach of trust under Section 409 of the Penal Code and alleged offences of forgery under Section 465 of the Penal Code.

Yeo works at Whitefield Law Corporation as a criminal defence lawyer.

The police "categorically reject" claims made by Yeo that investigations against him were "politically motivated".

Neither are the allegations “trumped up” for political reasons, they added.

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Top images by Charles Yeo/Facebook and @toxicstatenarrativeinsg/Instagram.