SINGAPORE — A fresh lawsuit has been sparked by the enforced shutdown of the National Shooting Centre (NSC) earlier this year.

Singapore Rifle Association (SRA), which ran the NSC until the authorities seized 77 weapons that had no proper records from the armouries there in February, is suing Singapore Gun Club (SGC) president Michael Vaz Lorrain for defamation.

In its statement of claim seen by TODAY, SRA’s lawyers Drew & Napier took issue with Mr Vaz’s comments in a letter to SGC members in March. SRA contends that Mr Vaz, who is also president of the Singapore Shooting Association (SSA), had alleged that it is guilty of criminal misconduct by contravening armoury licensing rules and security requirements, and that SRA is “entirely to blame” for the closure of the NSC.

The NSC, which is shared by the SRA and SGC, was ordered to shut on Feb 6 after the Police Licensing & Regulatory Department (PLRD) conducted an audit of its armouries and found “serious licensing irregularities”. The guns with no proper records belonged to members who have died, quit the clubs or left Singapore, according to previous media reports.

Following the closure, it emerged that SSA had asked SRA to hand over the space within one month (by Oct 3 last year) so that it could upgrade the space to meet new security requirements. The matter went to court over a dispute about who will operate the facility after the upgrading works. The case is still pending.

In the latest lawsuit, SRA said the content of Mr Vaz’s letter to SGC members — through email, on the club’s website and also a Facebook page — caused “grave injury to its reputation”. It claims that Mr Vaz had pinned the NSC’s closure partially on SRA “deliberately (failing) or (refusing) to comply with PLRD requirements to install a new vault door and an issuing window”.

Referring to Mr Vaz’s comments about SRA missing an emergency meeting called by Sport Singapore on Feb 6 regarding NSC’s shutdown, the plaintiff said it painted a picture of SRA being “cavalier and unconcerned with the events leading to the closure”.

SRA also argues that Mr Vaz had alleged that the police audit of the armouries was prompted by photos posted on its Facebook page where members brandished assault rifles.

SSA had said the police were informed about the new security requirements for the armoury — including the construction of new security fences and installation of metal detectors — in November 2014. In relation to this issue, SRA contends that Mr Vaz had suggested the additional measures were sparked by the licensing issues with the weapons seized from its armoury.

SRA said it had demanded, on June 7, that Mr Vaz publish an apology and offer compensation. The latter did not do so, its court papers state.

SRA is claiming unspecified damages and an injunction restraining further publication of the allegedly defamatory comments.

The case has been fixed for a pre-trial conference in the High Court on July 21.