| June 13, 2008 |  | |
| ARREST OF FORMER SINGAPOREAN Gopalan Nair faces new charge of insulting judge | ||
| He allegedly insulted another judge in 2006 e-mail, the 2nd charge in 2 weeks | ||
| By Jeremy Au Yong | ||
In the Subordinate Courts yesterday he was charged with intentionally insulting High Court Justice Lai Siu Chiu on or about March 17, 2006, in an e-mail he sent. That took place while Justice Lai was presiding over a contempt of court case involving Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) chief Chee Soon Juan. The charge says that Nair, who gave up his Singapore citizenship in 2005 and is now a United States citizen, sent the e-mail to Justice Lai through her private secretary. In it, he criticised her and fellow judges here for having 'no shame' and implied that she and the others worked against critics of the People's Action Party at the ruling party's behest. He also said judges were 'misusing the law for personal gain' and called her and others 'corrupt'. It was the second charge in as many weeks against Nair, who returned here on May 25 to observe hearings to assess damages in a defamation suit that Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew won against the SDP, Chee Soon Juan and his sister Chee Siok Chin. Nair was charged on June 2 with using insulting words towards High Court Justice Belinda Ang in an e-mail. Nair, who is out on the same $5,000 bail that was posted after he was charged with the first offence, will appear in court again on Monday. He did not speak to reporters at the court. But he told the media at a Tanjong Pagar coffee shop yesterday afternoon that he will claim trial to the charges when he goes to court on Monday. It was the first time he had spoken publicly since his arrest two weeks ago. He said several times yesterday that he did not send any e-mail to Justice Ang or anyone else, and that he simply posted his comments about the hearings to assess damages on his blog of May 29. 'I must add categorically that I never sent any e-mail messages to Belinda Ang at all. Neither did I send them to anyone else in this instance at all,' he said, with his lawyer Chia Ti Lik next to him. 'My notebook was seized by the police,' he added, referring to his portable computer. 'Unfortunately, I wrote my passwords in my notebook. They've all been seized. If anyone sent the e-mail messages, it wasn't me.' Asked about the latest charge involving the March 2006 incident, Nair said he could not remember if he had sent Justice Lai an e-mail. 'It was too long ago. It's impossible for me to really say that I did or I did not send it. I probably did not send it.' Reading from a statement, which was posted later on the SDP website, Nair said he apologised if the words in his blog caused distress. But he made it clear that he meant what he wrote. 'As to the events that occurred during the three days in court, it is an accurate observation which I have stated under my rights as a free man,' he said. He then went on to repeat his accusations of bias against Justice Ang. Asked whether he was issuing a challenge to MM Lee to sue him when he gave the address of his hotel here and his mobile telephone number in his May 29 blog post, Nair said he was 'just stating information'. | ||
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