When George Carman QC (Queen's Counsel) was allowed to represent Jeyaretnam at the proceedings, despite Lee's objections, Lee abruptly switched places with Goh to lead the PAP litigants from the rear.

Prime Minister Goh was now leading the charge. The trial judge eventually awarded Goh damages, though at less compensation than requested. The chief justice later, however, motioned in favour of Goh's appeal and he was awarded greater compensation package of S$200,000.

Although Goh denied his action was to bankrupt Jeyaretnam and drive him out of parliament, he commenced bankruptcy proceedings soon afterwards.

At the final moment, Goh agreed to stay his petition and accept installment payments. Why did Goh suddenly withdraw his petition? It was not a gesture of goodwill to Jeyaretnam, Lee Kwan Yew's political betre noire, whom the PAP leader had repeatedly vowed to destroy and to have "skinned alive like a skunk."

The answer came soon enough when one of Lee Kwan Yew's willing succedaneum, R. Ravindran, an PAP member of parliament, together with nine other Singaporeans of Indian descent, launched a consolidated petition to wind-up the Workers' Party for its inability to pay the damages and costs consequent upon a separate and distinct defamation action over a publication in the party's organ, (of which Jeyaretnam was the editor.)

Thus Jeyaretnam had staggered out of one dire political crisis only to find himself in another PAP sink-hole. Lee's substitution of Goh for his troop of eager Indians was diabolically clever. Lee had subtly removed race from the political equation: it looked better all round if the Indians themselves-and not his phlegmatic Chinese protégé Goh-were seen as slaughtering a member of their own ilk: Jeyaretnam.

And so it came to pass that in mid-November 1998 that Jeyaretnam and the Workers' Party once again found themselves at the losing end of the Singapore court system. Justice Goh Joon Seng ruled that Jeyaretnam had defamed Indian lawyers R. Ravindran and R. Kalamohan, and Nirumalan Pillay as well as seven other lesser members of the Tamil community.

Jeyaretnam was ordered to pay S$511,643 in damages and costs. He and his co-defendants appealed, but subsequently lost. He also eventually faltered in his payments. On May 5, 2000, Jeyaretnam was declared a bankrupt for failure to pay S$12,092, the last but one instalment in the settlement.

Help would come, however. Jeyaretnam's anonymous supporters once again rallied to his side, enabling him to pay the overdue instalment, and the bankruptcy order was set aside.

Jeyaretnam's troubles, like Sisyphus of yore, however, are by no means over. His legal troubles continue. This time the threat is coming from the rest of the libelled Indian community.

[Editor: The endless and fruitless task of Sisyphus in Greek mythology was to push uphill a stone that at once rolled down again.].

Adapted from forthcoming book, Beyond Suspicion: The Singapore Courts on Trial