PAP leaders under fire over `political' libel

SINGAPORE leaders tried to exterminate a political opponent by publishing his complaints to police against them, and did not deserve millions of dollars awarded to them for libel, a top British lawyer said on Tuesday.

But lawyers for Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong and Senior Minister Lee Kuan Yew told the Court of Appeal that was not true and that opposition politician Tang Liang Hong had used the court to repeat the libel.

``Tang deliberately and for cynical political gain perpetrated the libel that the various plaintiffs were liars and criminals,'' said Mr Lee's lawyer, Davinder Singh.

``In the course of this appeal, Mr Tang has every intention to run down the respondents yet further,'' Mr Singh said.

Top London libel lawyer Charles Gray said Mr Goh and Mr Lee were responsible for the publication of the libel contained in police reports filed by Mr Tang.

``Far from being actions to repair damage to reputation and vindication of their reputations, these suits were, in reality, conceived and pursued by all these respondents as the means to exterminate a political opponent,'' Mr Gray charged.

Mr Goh and fellow leaders of his People's Action Party (PAP) say they sued to defend the integrity that is critical to their ability to rule.

Their lawyers told the court it should ignore technical objections to the record S$8.08 (US$5.35 million) award and judge the case on its merits.

But Mr Gray alleged their motives were purely political.

``The truth of the matter was that it was the PM and the SM who themselves saw fit to procure the widest publicity for words which they and the other respondents now choose to treat as the vilest of libels upon them,'' Mr Gray said in a written submission.

``The bulk of the damage, if there was any damage, must have followed the very wide publicity in the press which followed publication of the contents of the report,'' he said.

``All may be fair in love, war and politics. But it is respectfully submitted that the courts should not lend their support to such warfare by making extravagant awards of damages for defamation for the combatants,'' he added.

Mr Gray has called the libel award ``grotesque'' and said it would have a ``chilling effect'' on freedom of speech and debate.

He said the judge who awarded S$8.08 million to Mr Goh, Lee and nine other PAP leaders did not know who published Mr Tang's reports.

Mr Tang called the PAP leaders liars for accusing him during campaign for the 2 January elections of being an ``anti-Christian Chinese chauvinist'' who endangered harmonious relations between the country's ethnic Chinese, Indians and Malays.

The PAP won 81 of parliament's 83 seats. Mr Goh and the others sued Mr Tang of the Worker's Party (WP), who failed to win a seat and fled Singapore after the election, saying his life had been threatened. He has not returned.

Mr Gray has argued that the libel decisions were wrong in law because Justice Lai Kew Chai, who made critical decisions in hearings leading up to the trial, should have stood aside.

He said there could have been a perception of bias because Mr Lai had been a partner in Mr Lee's old firm and because he called Mr Tang a ``liar'' and a ``coward''.

But Mr Singh said that was exactly what Mr Tang was. Mr Tang had not come back to Singapore because he knew this would be proven in court, and made the defamation worse by repeating his attacks on the PAP leaders in court through his lawyer.

Lawyer Tan Kok Kuan said there had been no close relationship between Mr Lee and Mr Lai, and the judge was not obliged to withdraw because of allegations that were inaccurate and incapable of substantiation.

Mr Tang ``was motivated by malice'', said Mr Tan as he opened arguments on behalf of Mr Lee and his son, Deputy Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

London-based human rights group Amnesty International has sent an observer to Mr Tang's appeal, as it did in a case last month involving Tang's lawyer, veteran WP leader Joshua Jeyaretnam.

Suits by Mr Goh and other PAP members charged Mr Jeyaretnam, 71, with libel by innuendo for telling an election rally that Tang had filed police reports against them.

The High Court's ruling on that case is pending. _ Reuter