SINGAPORE — Prime Minister (PM) Lee Hsien Loong’s siblings claimed that he had “intimidated” them, after learning from their father’s will that his sister had the “unfettered right” to live in their family home.

“He shouted at us... It was the crossing of the Rubicon. He has not spoken to us since,” Dr Lee Wei Ling, 62, and Mr Lee Hsien Yang, 60, said in a seven-page joint statement published on Facebook on Thursday (July 6).

They recounted that shortly after, PM Lee wrote to tell them that he had hired lawyer Lucien Wong to deal with the situation. “We were gobsmacked. We were siblings discussing our father’s house. We had to get our own lawyers,” they said, adding that PM Lee soon stopped communicating with them directly. The siblings were also left out of the Chinese New Year reunion that their older brother had with all their relatives after their father’s death.

The Lee siblings are the children of founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who died in March 2015. His will was read to them in April that year.

Since last month, the family feud between PM Lee, 65, and his brother and sister has been played out in public, revolving around their family home at 38 Oxley Road and thir late father’s wish for it to be torn down after he died, or after Dr Lee no longer lives there.

Quoting PM Lee’s Ministerial Statement delivered in Parliament on Monday where he said that their father “always wanted (the house) knocked down”, PM Lee’s siblings said that all parties now acknowledge that their father’s wish for demolition was “unwavering”.

While Mr Lee Kuan Yew made “backup plans” in case the Government acted against his wish — which is that only his children and their descendants would have access to the bungalow — it was clear that he “did not ‘accept’ that the Government should gazette the house”, the siblings said.

“Lee Kuan Yew always regarded the possibility of gazetting (the house) as distressing and regrettable,” they added.

PM Lee told Parliament that if demolition was not possible, Mr Lee Kuan Yew had accepted an alternative proposal by PM Lee and his wife Ho Ching to renovate the interior of the house without knocking it down.

Earlier, in his statutory declarations to the Ministerial Committee exploring options for the home, PM Lee had raised “grave concerns” about events surrounding the making of his father’s final will, but his siblings said on Thursday that the courts have declared the will to be the full, final and legally binding statement of Mr Lee Kuan Yew’s wishes when probate was granted.

If he had wanted to, PM Lee had every opportunity to cast doubt on their father’s will during the probate process, they added.

Noting that the courts are the “correct forum to resolve disputes about a will”, the siblings said: “We hope that (PM Lee) will cease attacking the will. If the Government respects the separation of powers, it should treat Lee Kuan Yew’s will as the last word on the matter.”