SINGAPORE – Rebutting allegations that he had conspired with historian Thum Ping Tjin to try to subvert Singapore's parliamentary processes, Oxford University senior lecturer Philip Kreager said the charges, levelled by Deputy Speaker of Parliament Charles Chong, were "clearly preposterous".

“Members of an organisation keep each other informed of events and exchange views. Historians, like other professionals, do likewise. The conspiracy that Mr Chong claims to have discovered in our private correspondence exists only in his own imagination,” wrote Dr Kreager on the university’s Project South-east Asia website on Tuesday (May 1).

Dr Kreager and Dr Thum, a Singaporean academic, are among the trustees of Project South-east Asia, an initiative which brings together scholars studying the region.

In a strongly-worded statement on Monday, Mr Chong, who is chairman of the Parliamentary Select Committee on deliberate online falsehoods, had accused the two academics of a "coordinated attempt to try to influence and subvert our parliamentary processes".

Dr Thum, a local academic, has been in the news since his controversial appearance before the Select Committee on March 29. He had claimed in his written submission to the committee that historically, there has only been one body that has peddled falsehoods — the People’s Action Party (PAP) Government, which has been spreading “fake news” about Operation Coldstore, for example, “for narrow party-political gain”.

He was grilled on his research for six hours by committee member, Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam, who challenged him with evidence to the contrary.

Following Dr Thum’s appearance before the committee, an open letter in support of him and academic freedom in Singapore surfaced and has been signed by nearly 300 academics from various countries.

Project South-east Asia’s trustees also issued a statement in defence of Dr Thum and academic freedom in Singapore.

On Monday, Mr Chong released an email exchange between two academics associated with Project South-east Asia, which were copied to Singapore’s Parliament Secretariat “inadvertently”.

Mr Chong said it strongly suggested Dr Thum’s involvement in the statement by Project South-east Asia.

In the exchange, Dr Kreager was asked if Dr Thum had seen the correspondence between the academics and the Parliament Secretariat. He replied that Dr Thum had, among other things, suggested a draft reply for him.

Dr Kreager added that there would be historians signing the open letter and was hopeful several of them would circulate Project South-east Asia’s statement and the open letter to their colleagues.

Mr Chong said the two letters were “remarkably similar”, and gave “an appearance of spontaneous academic support for Dr Thum”.

But he noted: “Dr Kreager’s email suggests this appearance is misleading. The ‘support’ seems to have been primarily engineered by Dr Thum himself, working in close concert with Dr Kreager.”

Mr Chong also released his April 20 response to Project South-east Asia’s letter, in which he said its statement was based on inaccurate facts. He said it was presumptuous of the academics to tell Singapore parliamentarians how to do their jobs.

On Tuesday, Dr Kreager released his April 26 response, which called out Mr Chong for stating that Dr Thum is not an academic historian.

"To the contrary, he is a member of the University of Oxford whose historical research here and in Southeast Asia is a matter of public record... This sort of vilification of him must stop, and we reiterate our call for an apology from the Select Committee to Dr Thum for his treatment," Dr Kreager wrote.

Dr Thum has not responded to TODAY's request for comments, but he shared Dr Kreager’s response on his Facebook page on Tuesday.