AGC hits back at Li Shengwu, says withdrawal from court case is to avoid taking questions under oath

SINGAPORE — The Attorney-General’s Chambers (AGC) has hit back at the Prime Minister’s nephew Li Shengwu, saying his decision to withdraw from a contempt-of-court case against him was to avoid the prospect of answering questions under oath and disclose information.

In a three-page statement to the media on Thursday (Jan 23), the AGC said Mr Li had “contrived excuses for running away”, and that his decision to stop participating in the court proceedings was a clear acknowledgement that his defence had no merit.

The AGC added Mr Li should continue to take part in the proceedings if he believes his statement was not in contempt of Singapore’s judiciary.

The long-running case is over a Facebook post Mr Li made in July 2017, in which he wrote that the Singapore Government was “very litigious” and has a “pliant court system”.

He was commenting on a dispute between his uncle, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and his father Lee Hsien Yang and aunt Lee Wei Ling over the fate of the home of his grandfather, Singapore’s late founding statesman Lee Kuan Yew.

In a Facebook post on Wednesday, Mr Li, who is based in the United States, said he would no longer take part in the proceedings because of the AGC’s recent actions in court.

In particular, he singled out the AGC’s application to strike out parts of his defence affidavit, such that they would not be considered during the trial. He did not specify the parts of his affidavit that had been struck out.

“Moreover, they demanded that these parts be sealed in the court record, so that the public cannot know what the removed parts contain,” he said, adding that this was part of a broader pattern of unusual conduct by the AGC.

STRIKING-OUT APPLICATIONS COMMON: AGC

In response, the AGC said that parts of Mr Li’s defence affidavit had been struck out because the affidavit contained matters that were scandalous and irrelevant to the issues in the case.

The AGC added that contrary to Mr Li’s allegations, such “striking-out applications” were expressly provided for in the Rules of Court and are regularly made.

The High Court struck out parts of Mr Li’s affidavit after hearing arguments, including those from his lawyer, in November last year, the AGC said. Mr Li was directed to resubmit his affidavit to adhere to the court’s order.

While he complied and did not make an appeal, “now, two months later, he uses this as one of his two excuses”, the AGC said.

REHASHING AN OLD COMPLAINT

On Wednesday, Mr Li said that in the years-long legal tussle, the AGC had submitted thousands of pages of legal documents “over one paragraph on social media”.

Mr Li had previously appealed the High Court’s decision to allow the AGC to serve legal papers on him in the US, where he works as an assistant professor of economics at Harvard University.  

The Court of Appeal ruled in April last year that the papers had been properly served.

The AGC said on Thursday: “Now, more than nine months later, he rehashes the same complaint.

“His basic objection is that he should not have been served with the (legal) papers at all. This is in reality a demand that he be treated differently from all others.”

TIMING OF WITHDRAWAL ‘SIGNIFICANT’

The AGC said it had applied to cross-examine Mr Li on his affidavit and for him to answer questions under oath about his Facebook post.

The timing of his decision to withdraw from the proceedings was therefore significant, the AGC added.

“Such cross-examination will bring out the truth as to what actually happened and Mr Li’s intentions in making the post,” the AGC said.

The questions included the number of Facebook friends he had had at the time of his post and whether they included members of the media. This, the AGC said, was pertinent to the question of whether Mr Li would reasonably have foreseen that the media would publish the contents of his post.

The AGC said: “Mr Li refused to answer these questions. The clear inference is that his answers would have been damaging to his case.”

The AGC noted that as early as August 2017, Mr Li had said he would not return to Singapore for the proceedings.

“It is therefore clear that he never intended to come back to Singapore to defend himself, but was using legal representation in the proceedings as a platform to launch baseless allegations against the AGC and others.

“That strategy failed,” the AGC said.

Mr Li announced in September last year that he had hired top British lawyer David Pannick to advise him on the case.

CONDUCT SUGGESTS ‘SENSE HE’S ABOVE THE LAW’

The AGC said Mr Li’s conduct suggested a sense that he was above the law.

This was borne out in his consistent complaint that the proceedings should not have been brought against him at all, it said.

In the early stages, Mr Li was given the opportunity to apologise and withdraw his statement, the AGC said, adding that it had made it clear then that it would not bring proceedings against him if he did so.

But he refused, the AGC said.

This is not the first time that the AGC has brought proceedings against those who made similar statements against Singapore’s judiciary.

In 2010, for instance, the Supreme Court found British writer Alan Shadrake’s statement about the “absence of independence in a compliant judiciary” as amounting to contempt.

The AGC said the need to act against people who make baseless and contemptuous statements against the judiciary has long been clear, from the days of the late Mr Lee Kuan Yew.

The late statesman repeatedly stressed the importance of ensuring that such statements were dealt with firmly to protect public confidence in the administration of justice, the AGC said.

“If Mr Li has nothing to hide, he should make himself available for cross-examination and answer the questions posed to him on oath,” the AGC said.

“If he believes that his statement was not in contempt of the Singapore judiciary, he should continue to defend the proceedings.”

LI SHENGWU REPLIES

Responding to the AGC’s statement in a Facebook post on Thursday night, Mr Li said the allegations against him were “as usual, false and spurious”.

“The AGC demands that I give them the identities of my Facebook friends. My position is this: Who my friends are is none of their business,” he said. “My friends have a moral right to privacy.”

To this, AGC said that Mr Li had “failed to state exactly which parts of the AGC’s statement are supposedly false — because he cannot”.

“The facts are clear and reflected in the court record,” it added.

“If he truly believes — as he claims — that any of the points made in the statement are false, or that he is not obliged to disclose whether his Facebook friends included members of the media, he should return to Singapore to defend the proceedings and let the court decide where the truth lies.”

On Wednesday, Mr Li said he had removed his cousin Li Hongyi, who is the Prime Minister’s son, from his list of Facebook friends, and would continue to regard his friends-only Facebook posts as private.

Mr Li Hongyi, writing on Facebook on Thursday, asked Mr Li Shengwu to leave him out of the discussion.

“I don't know what’s going on between you and the Government, but I've got nothing to do with it. Could you please leave me out of this?” Mr Li Hongyi said.

“I know I can't prove a negative, but I've really tried not to get involved as far as possible.”