Pritam's lawyer presses Loh Pei Ying on advice to Raeesah to get more anecdotes as police investigated her lie

Ex-Workers' Party (WP) cadre member Loh Pei Ying fielded questions from WP secretary-general Pritam Singh's lawyer, Andre Jumabhoy, regarding messages Loh sent to Raeesah Khan about the untruthful anecdote about a sexual assault victim.

On Oct. 17, 2024, the fourth day of Singh's trial, Jumabhoy brought up messages between Raeesah and Loh.

The messages were sent on Oct. 7, 2021, soon after Raeesah had an exchange in parliament on Oct. 4, 2021 with law and home affairs minister, K Shanmugam, about her anecdote.

Shanmugam had asked for Raeesah to provide more details on what she said happened, so that the police could look into the matter.

He then revealed that the police had spent "a lot of time" looking through records of a case matching the one Raeesah described.

He also told Parliament that the police would investigate the matter further, including by interviewing Raeesah.

On Oct. 7, Loh had messaged Raeesah, suggesting, "You might want to gather some cases of people who are willing to tell their stories and present that instead."

Jumabhoy accused Loh of telling Raeesah to "hide behind" another anecdote after sharing the false one in parliament, to which Loh replied that they were "brainstorming" a solution to the scenario.

Jumabhoy asked if the "solution to the scenario [was] to obstruct an investigation", and Loh replied, "No".

"Is the solution to pervert the course of justice?" he pressed.

"No," Loh said.

Loh clarified that other anecdotes could be used to bring across Raeesah's point on the treatment sexual assault victims face, and she sent the message to Raeesah as a friend to work through options as there was "a grey area to operate in".

The main crux of Raeesah's anecdote was that sexual assault victims have often been mistreated by the police and that point should not be lost, Loh explained.

When asked about the "grey area," she elaborated it was "the grey area between not lying anymore and still supporting police investigations."

The judge then asked, "Police investigations into what? By using these other analogies?"

Loh responded that other victims' stories would support police investigations into the fact that the police could "make sexual assault victims uncomfortable".

"So, not the police investigations into [Raeesah's] anecdote?" The judge asked.

"That's right," Loh said.

"It's disingenuous to be hiding information"

Loh also sent another message on Oct. 7, 2021 telling Raeesah to take the position that she had lost contact with the victim.

Jumabhoy called Loh's advice "disingenuous" as doing so would be hiding the fact that Raeesah was not there.

"So, it's disingenuous to be hiding information," Jumabhoy pointed out.

However, Loh disagreed.

Loh explained that she did not see it as hiding information, saying that there was a possibility that what the victim experienced in Raeesah's anecdote was true.

Thus, Loh said she gave Raeesah advice based on the possibility that the experience was authentic.

Loh is expected to continue testifying on Oct. 18.

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Top photos via Mothership