SINGAPORE — The chief editor of socio-political website The Online Citizen (TOC), Terry Xu Yuan Chen, was on Thursday (Dec 13) charged with criminal defamation for publishing an article alleging corruption within the highest ranks of the Government.

The 36-year-old was charged alongside the article’s alleged author, Daniel Augustin De Costa, 35, who was also charged with using another person’s email account to send the article to TOC without his consent.

According to the police, Xu failed to verify the identity of the author before publishing the article in question – titled “The Take Away from Seah Kian Ping’s Facebook Post” – under the name of “Willy Sum”. Mr Sum’s real name is Sim Wee Lee.

Mr Sim’s house was raided by the police in November, and police investigations found that De Costa was the one who wrote and sent the article – and a few other articles – to TOC using Mr Sim’s email account.

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De Costa had sent the email on Sept 4 this year at 7.24pm from an Internet cafe located in Chinatown. The email was titled “PAP MP apologises to SDP”.

Court documents did not state the relationship between De Costa and Mr Sim, or how De Costa gained access to the latter’s Yahoo email account.

The article, which misspelled Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng’s name, was taken down last month. The author alleged “corruption at the highest echelons” in the article, referring to comments made by Mr Seah and Law and Home Affairs Minister K Shanmugam on some Singaporean activists who met Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in late August.

Ahead of their hearing, the two co-accused appeared relaxed and were seen chatting together with a few supporters.

Xu, who is represented by lawyer Priscilla Chia of Peter Loh & Choo, is out on bail of S$5,000, and De Costa, represented by Mr Eugene Thuraisingam, is out on bail of S$10,000.

They will both return to court on Jan 8 next year.

If convicted of criminal defamation, they may be jailed up to two years. De Costa's additional charge for gaining unauthorised access to Mr Sim’s account also carries a maximum two-year jail term.