Raeesah's ex-aide redacted texts from records given to COP, was left to do so alone: Day 5 of Pritam's trial

Ex-Workers' Party member Yudhishthra Nathan took the witness stand to give his testimony on events that transpired after Raeesah Khan's lie on Aug. 3 in parliament.

He did so on Oct. 18, the fifth day of WP secretary-general Pritam Singh's trial. Singh faces two charges of lying to Parliament.

Nathan said he redacted some of the text messages from chat records that were submitted to the Committee of Privileges (COP), adding that he did so alone and that these redactions were not approved by anyone.

This follows his fellow ex-WP member Loh Pei Ying's testimony on Oct. 17 that her redactions had to be approved, and that she had lied to the COP about the reasons for redacting one message in particular.

This was a message sent by Nathan suggesting that Raeesah should "not give too many details". Nathan himself had also redacted this message.

Nathan redacted messages alone before submitting documents to the COP

Recalling the end of his testimony to the COP in court on Oct. 18, 2024, Nathan said he was told by the COP members it would be alright to redact irrelevant information in the documents they submitted to the COP.

Nathan said that Member of Parliament Rahayu Mahzam (a member of the COP) reviewed the messages to be extracted from his phone together with him and a member of the parliament staff.

The process of redacting certain text messages took place with Rahayu and other staff members at Parliament House.

They sat together in the parliament library, and went through the messages to be extracted from his phone.

He said he had to provide reasons for each message he wanted to be redacted.

Rahayu then had to leave, with Nathan recalling that she said she had to attend to constituency work, and that the library closed after.

Nathan said the staff asked him to complete the rest of the redactions and email it to them.

He continued redacting messages in his car, while it was parked in the parliament carpark.

Nathan confirmed that he redacted the messages in the car alone.

He was asked by the prosecution if the redaction of his message about not giving "too many details" was approved by anyone, but he said he could not remember as there were "hundreds of messages".

Loh's redactions had to be approved

As for Loh, she testified earlier that each of her proposed redactions had been approved by Rahayu and senior parliamentary staff, but that she made the further redaction without Rahayu's knowledge.

Loh took the position that Rahayu would have seen the entire unredacted conversation in the course of going through the messages together over three hours or so.

However, she admitted that she had lied when she said the redaction of Nathan's message was done because it was about another Member of Parliament (MP).

Redacted message on Oct. 12, 2021

The prosecutor also asked Nathan about the redacted message in question, from Oct. 12, 2021, which read:

"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."

Nathan explained that he meant Raeesah could perhaps go to parliament and share that "certain attributes of this girl that she met were not accurately conveyed”.

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

Loh's explanation was:

"I didn't want this to come to light, that would make [Nathan] 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.

As to other messages sent on that day that were later deleted, Nathan said they were deleted "soon after it was sent", as those messages had referred to the fact that Raeesah lied in parliament.

The redacted message in issue was sent after Raeesah's call that afternoon and before Nathan met with Singh and Loh that night.

Nathan said he, Loh, and Raeesah had been vacillating between Oct. 4 and 12, 2021, as to whether Raeesah should come clean, as they were "very afraid" of the Worker's Party.

“At that point in time, I was not confident that Pritam Singh would have been able, or the party leaders would be able, to deal with the media side of this whole situation properly,” he stated.

Nathan also said a “proper plan" had not been devised by the leader on how to resolve the issue.

“I was still afraid, at that point in time. I was afraid of what the repercussions for the party would be," he noted.

The trial is expected to continue on Monday (Oct. 21).

Top image via Amber Tay and Tharun Suresh