Accused teen blogger Amos Yee wants more time to prepare questions for own defence

SINGAPORE — After opting for a court process to help him make up his mind about his trial, teenage blogger Amos Yee decided to fight the eight charges pending against him.

As he did the day before, the 17-year-old on Thursday (Aug 18) raised objections to issues that he perceived would put him at a disadvantage, including how he received the prosecution’s list of witnesses and evidence only on Wednesday.

Amos, who is not represented by a lawyer, earlier asked to go for Criminal Case Resolution, a court process where an accused person may ask for an indication of his possible sentences in a closed-door meeting with prosecutors, presided over by a senior district judge.

The meeting happened Thursday morning and was unsuccessful, so the trial resumed.

Amos faces six charges of wounding the religious feelings of Muslims and Christians, and two counts of flouting an order to show up at a police station for investigations. Both sets of charges relate to content he posted online between November last year and May this year.

On Thursday, he raised his concerns over how he had just received the prosecution’s list of witnesses and exhibits the day before.

He then asked to adjourn the trial for two months in order to have sufficient time to prepare questions for the cross-examination of the witnesses.

However, Deputy Public Prosecutor Hon Yi pointed out that Amos was facing charges under the Magistrates’ Arrest Cases, where the prosecution is not required under the law to provide the information months ahead of the trial.

While District Judge Lim Tse Haw did not accede to the teen’s request to adjourn the trial, he would grant him time to consider each witness’ evidence first and to frame his questions.

Amos had also questioned the relevance of certain contents of a report that was prepared by the prosecution’s first witness from the police cybercrime response team. The report included information that the witness was instructed to download from various websites, such as from WordPress, Twitter, YouTube and Facebook.

If convicted of deliberately wounding the religious feelings of others, Amos could be jailed up to three years and fined. For failing to turn up at the police station in spite of an order, he could be jailed up to a month and fined up to S$1,500.

The trial will continue next Tuesday (Aug 23).