PM Goh wins only $20,000 in libel case

SINGAPORE's Prime minister Goh Chok Tong was awarded a total of Singapore S$20,000 in damages on Monday against an opposition leader for libel, a 10th of what Mr Goh had asked for.

Opposition leader Joshua Jeyaretnam said he was ``obviously disappointed'' and would take some time to consider the verdict from last month's trial and decide whether to appeal.

Mr Goh and 10 fellow leaders of the ruling People's Action Party (PAP) brought eight cases of libel against Mr Jeyaretnam, and Mr Goh's was taken as a test which would determine the rulings in them all.

Lawyers said there would be hearings on those other cases. Mr Jeyaretnam said he had been ordered to pay 60 per cent of the costs of the PAP leaders.

Mr Goh's lawyers had demanded S$200,000 in total damages during a hearing in which they accused Mr Jeyaretnam of libel by innuendo for announcing at a political rally that a party colleague had filed a police report against the prime minister.

They argued that was defamation because the contents of the report, which accused Mr Goh and the other PAP leaders of lying, would have been well known to his audience.

Both sides brought in top London libel lawyers to argue their cases in a hugely-publicised trial monitored by international human rights bodies, who said they were concerned that Singapore's leadership used the courts to crush opposition.

Mr Goh and the other PAP leaders vehemently denied such accusations, saying they sued to preserve the integrity critical to their ability to rule.

Mr Jeyaretnam and his lawyer, George Carman, charged that the case was entirely political and aimed at bankrupting the veteran leader of the Workers' Party (WP) and thus disqualifying him from parliament. The case stemmed from a December election campaign in which the PAP focused its heavy weaponry on WP candidate Tang Liang Hong, calling him an ``anti-Christian, Chinese chauvinist''.

Mr Tang filed police reports accusing Mr Goh and his colleagues of criminal conspiracy and lying, and Mr Jeyaretnam, at the last WP rally before the January 2 election, announced Mr Tang had done so.

Mr Tang fled overseas after losing in the election, saying his life had been threatened.

He has not returned and Mr Goh and his PAP colleagues sued him successfully for libel earlier this year. The PAP leaders were awarded S$8.08 million in damages, a Singapore record.

Mr Goh was awarded S$600,000. The PAP, which has ruled Singapore since 1959, won 81 of parliament's 83 seats in the election. Mr Jeyaretnam was given a parliamentary seat as the best loser under a constitutional rule that there must be at least three opposition members in parliament. - Reuter