Pritam Singh's trial: Defence to submit 'no case to answer' for 1st charge on Oct. 30, last witness does not testify

The last day of the October tranche of the trial of Workers' Party secretary general Pritam Singh took place on Oct. 24.

The last prosecution witness, an police investigation officer (IO), did not take the stand as initially expected.

Singh’s lawyer Andre Jumabhoy also confirmed the defence's plans to make a submission of "no case to answer" for the first charge.

Such a submission can be made in a criminal trial where the defence thinks there is insufficient evidence to support the prosecution's case, according to the Singapore Judiciary website.

For the first charge, Singh is accused of falsely testifying that as at the conclusion of a meeting with Raeesah Khan, WP Chair Sylvia Lim and Faisal Manap on Aug. 8, 2021, he wanted Raeesah to, at some point, clarify in parliament that what she told MPs on Aug. 3, 2021 about having accompanied a rape victim to a police station was untrue.

Previously, on Wednesday (Oct. 23), the judge had asked if the defence would be submitting an application to state that there was "no case to answer", and Jumabhoy said they would be doing so for the first charge.

Jumabhoy said their decision on whether to do so for the second charge had not been "crystallised".

The defence had also asked on Oct. 23 for time to make written submissions.

Police investigations

On Oct. 24 in court, Deputy Attorney-General Ang Cheng Hock read out the facts involving Singh’s police investigation after saying that both prosecution and defence agreed that the officer did not need to testify.

Singh's mobile phone was seized by the officer during the course of investigations, Ang said.

He then informed police that it contained details relevant to investigations, and included privileged information and conversations with his lawyer.

Singh also agreed to review the contents with the IO, Ang shared.

After reviewing the content, police chose not to conduct forensic extraction of the phone’s contents, he added.

Jumabhoy also confirmed that the defence agreed with these facts said by Ang.

Defence making submission for first charge

Following the prosecution's statement, Jumabhoy said that his team intends to make a submission in respect of the first charge.

He requested to have until Wednesday (Oct. 30) to file a written submission.

However, the prosecution proposed for the defence to submit on Tuesday (Oct. 29), considering that they would have six days from now to file a submission.

After considering the matter, the judge asked the defence to make its submissions by 12pm on Wednesday (Oct. 30) and for the prosecution to submit their reply by Friday that week (Nov. 1).

The trial will continue on Nov. 5, at 9:30am.

Top photos by Daniel Seow/Mothership