In response to the official fake news from the corrupted Prime Minister, STR fully welcomes a libel suit from the corrupted Singapore Prime Minister in an Australian court.

If the Singapore Prime Minister feels he has been wronged by the allegations, he should rightfully commence legal proceedings right away. Let’s take this a step further: if Lee Hsien Loong does not sue within a week, it only further reinforce the public opinion the Prime Minister has a guilty conscience.

Like his former best friend Najib Razak, Lee Hsien Loong immediately invoked his favourite term “fake news” when criticism goes viral. “Fake news” is his first line of defence, but it is also a porous one.

In a democratic society with an independent judiciary, a legal proceeding for libel would seek to establish line by line, which allegation is untrue. Henceforth, let’s fact check the claims made in the alleged “fake news” article again:

1) Fake news: Najib Razak signed an unfair water treaty

The new water treaty in January 2018 sees Singapore paying 3 sen (S$0.01) per thousand gallons, or more than 15 times cheaper than what Malaysia state Melaka is paying at 50 sen (S$0.16) per thousand gallons. The water treaty is unfair as confirmed by the newly-elected Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who is in fact flying to Singapore next week to negotiate a price increase.

2) Fake news: Najib Razak signed for the exorbitant High Speed Rail contract in 2013 despite knowing his country’s debt

It is already an established fact that the High Speed Rail has been postponed due to Malaysia’s trillion RM (S$333 billion) national debt. The then-Prime Minister overstretched Malaysia’s finance to please Lee Hsien Loong, who proposed the rail project. Link the dots and think what is the return for Najib Razak then.

3) Fake news: Tens of billions flowed into Singapore banks with the government’s knowledge

For the 4 years between 2011 and 2015, eight Singapore banks received and processed funds transfers amounting to US$3.5 billion, according to the US Department of Justice. According to anti-money laundering regulations in Singapore, all transactions that are “large and frequent” are labelled as suspicious transactions and the authorities would be notified. The existing bank regime at that time should have flagged the S$3.7 billion worth of transactions over 4 years, and if it doesn’t, it only proves that Singapore is a money laundering hub in practice or it deliberately shut an eye to the transactions.

4) Fake news: Singapore government delayed investigations between 2011 and 2015 to assist Najib Razak

According to the Singapore investigators, BSI bank was flagged for suspicious transactions as early as 2011. The Singapore government only start monitoring the bank in May 2015, after being notified by the Swiss police. BSI was shut down by the Singapore government in 2016, only after the Swiss authorities gathered evidence confirming the bank’s role in laundering 1MDB funds.

As such, the actual fact of the matter is we have two parties making moves to each other’s benefits.

Which point is exactly fake then, my esteemed Prime Minister?

STR believes in independent and accurate reporting, and as such, if the Prime Minister could deliver a reasonable explanation to the “fake news” above, I am willing to take the first flight home and turn myself in to the Singapore Police.

Alex Tan

STR Editor