Loh Pei Ying admits to lying about redaction of chat messages given to COP: Day 4 of Pritam’s trial

On the fourth day of Workers' Party's (WP) secretary-general Pritam Singh's trial, ex-WP cadre member Loh Pei Ying admitted that she lied about the reason she redacted information in a document submitted to the Committee of Privileges (COP) in 2021.

Singh's defence lawyer, Andre Jumabhoy, read out a message from another ex-WP member, Yudhishthra Nathan, that stated:

"In the first place, I think we should just not give too many details. At most apologise for not having the facts about her age accurate."

Jumabhoy pointed out to Loh that in her submission to the COP, she redacted the message saying it was about another Member of Parliament (MP).

"That's not true, isn't it?" he asked.

Loh replied, "That is not true".

"That was a barefaced lie," Jumabhoy said.

"Sure," Loh said.

Hiding the message

When asked if she deliberately hid Nathan's message when submitting the document to the COP, Loh requested to clarify, but Jumabhoy pressed on.

Loh then admitted that she had hidden the message.

"You hid [the message] on the basis that it was about something else," Jumabhoy pointed out, to which Loh said, "Yes".

"That's a lie," said Jumabhoy, and Loh said "yes" again.

As the questioning continued, Jumabhoy stated that Loh's action was clear by redacting the message, as the message "doesn't look good" for Nathan.

Loh agreed.

"And that doesn't look great on your group," Jumabhoy added.

"That doesn't look good on him," she clarified.

Loh added that she was worried the documents would become public and that Nathan would be attacked for his comment; thus, she redacted the message.

Loh then shared that she had redacted the message after sitting down with senior parliamentary staff and MP Rahayu Mahzam — a member of the COP — for three hours to review all her text messages. They reviewed all her messages "that were relevant to the COP" and agreed on what could and could not be redacted.

When questioned by Jumabhoy if Rahayu knew that Loh was redacting that particular message, Loh replied:

"No, this redaction is mine, but my position is that she would have seen (the message)."

Jumabhoy pressed Loh, asking if she had redacted the message to preserve the integrity of Nathan, herself, or Raeesah, but Loh said no to each of these suggestions.

"I didn't want this to come to light, that would make him appear poorly, because he did eventually change his mind, and it didn't really, materially materialise, this wasn't something that (we) acted on."

Loh said that in the end, she felt that the message was "immaterial" to the timeline of the case.

Proceeding were adjourned shortly after this exchange.

Loh is expected to continue testifying on Oct. 18.

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Top photos via Mothership