FBI investigates burglary with claimed links to Singapore secret police

THE United States Federal Bureau of Investigation is investigating claims that Singapore's security agency was behind a recent burglary at the home of an American academic helping an opposition politician in Singapore faced with crushing libel damages after recent elections.

The burglary was carried out on August 27 at the San Francisco area home of the academic, a widely respected specialist on South East Asian affairs who was arranging for the politician, Mr Tang Liang Hong, to take up a six-month fellowship at an American university.

The academic, who asked not to be named, said Singaporean authorities apparently learned by telephone taps of his role in the academic placement, which would be funded by the Open Society Institute set up by the billionaire investor Mr George Soros, blamed recently by Malaysia's Prime Minister, Dr Mahathir Mohamad, for South East Asia's currency crisis.

The break-in, which seemed intended to find computer files and other records listing people interested in Singaporean affairs, is being investigated by local police and the FBI. Afterwards, the academic said he was subjected to two weeks of clumsy surveillance.

On one occasion a tree started shaking violently while he was on a walk.

"I walked towards it thinking a small animal, a cat or raccoon might be stuck, and suddenly there was flash, flash, flash, flash in my face ... I saw a man of Chinese ethnicity with a camera in his hand and he was running away."

Another time he noticed a man in the same park swing a video camera onto him and start filming.

The academic and Singaporean opposition figures living overseas believe Singapore's Internal Security Department runs a network of part-time informants in the US, Australia and other countries.

Mr Tang, who stood for the opposition Workers' Party against the ruling People's Action Party in the January elections, has been hit with about $S8 million ($7 million) in damages for libelling the Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, and other PAP figures during the campaign.

Mr Tang has appealed against the awards and is in Australia awaiting the judgment. He has yet to make up his mind on the offer of a university position.

Published in the Sydney Morning Herald. Oct 21, 1997