Singapore's Indian-origin ex min fails to get witness statements

Singapore's Indian-origin former transport minister S Iswaran on Tuesday failed to secure the statements of prosecution witnesses for a third time as his trial for alleged corruption starts next week.

The 62-year-old faces a total of 35 charges, two of which are for corruption involving about SGD 166,000. Another 32 counts are for obtaining items worth more than SGD 237,000 as a public servant, while one is for obstructing the course of justice.

Iswaran made two previous bids to obtain all the prosecution witness statements before his case goes to trial.

These attempts were rejected by an assistant registrar at a criminal case disclosure conference and a High Court judge.

Iswaran's charges relate to his dealings with hotel and property tycoon Ong Beng Seng, and Singapore Exchange-listed Lum Chang Holdings' managing director David Lum.

The defence lawyers, led by Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, based their arguments on their interpretation of Section 214(1)(d) of the Criminal Procedure Code (CPC), which sets out the contents required for a prosecution's case.

The prosecution's case is served on the defence before a trial begins. It must include conditioned statements that the prosecution intends to admit at the trial. These refer to written statements which are admissible as evidence in a criminal proceeding.

The prosecution took this to mean that it must provide only the conditioned statements of witnesses it intends to admit at trial.

The defence lawyers argued that it means the prosecution must provide all forms of statements of the witnesses the prosecution intends to call, including "draft statements".

At an earlier hearing, Singh argued that his client was entitled to the prosecution's facts and evidence supporting the charges, together with the statements he gave, and the prosecution did not have the discretion to decide what to share.

In dismissing Iswaran's bid, Chief Justice Sundaresh Menon and Justices Woo Bih Li and Steven Chong concluded that they did not feel the questions raised by the defence were questions of law of public interest.

Among the charges, the former minister is accused of obtaining various items from Ong, including tickets to the Singapore Formula One (F1) Grand Prix, and football matches and musical shows in Britain.

Iswaran, who was first handed charges in January this year, has claimed he is innocent.

Iswaran resigned from the ruling People's Action Party and stepped down as transport minister as well as his parliamentary seat on January 16.