View source for Police investigation into Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern

{{Short description|Ongoing Singapore police investigation into Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern for giving false evidence}}
The '''police investigation into Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern''' is an ongoing Singapore Police Force inquiry into whether [[Lee Hsien Yang]] and his wife, lawyer [[Lee Suet Fern]], committed the offence of giving false evidence in judicial proceedings, arising from findings made against them in the 2020 disciplinary case ''[[Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern]]''. 

The investigation was publicly disclosed in Parliament in March 2023, after the couple — having initially agreed to a police interview — left Singapore and declined to return for questioning. 

As of the most recent public statements by police (October 2024), no charges have been filed, the couple remain outside Singapore, and both Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern have since been granted political refugee status by the United Kingdom.
{{Infobox-lawsuit
| court = Singapore Police Force investigation; no court proceedings filed as of the most recent public statements
| applicant = Singapore Police Force, following a referral in October 2021
| respondent = Lee Hsien Yang, former CEO of Singtel; Lee Suet Fern, lawyer, wife of Lee Hsien Yang
| underlying_act = Testimony and affidavit evidence given by Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern during the 2019–2020 disciplinary tribunal and Court of Three Judges proceedings against Lee Suet Fern over Lee Kuan Yew's last will
| charge = Potential offence(s) of giving false evidence in judicial proceedings (perjury); no charges filed as of October 2024
| key_dates = Referral to police: October 2021; police first contact couple, request interview: 9 June 2022; couple agree to attend, propose 13 July 2022: 13 June 2022; couple leave Singapore: 15 June 2022; couple decline by e-mail to attend scheduled interview: on or around 13 July 2022; investigation publicly disclosed in Parliament: 2 March 2023; parliamentary question on disparate treatment of Keppel executives filed: 18 March 2023; police statement on interview process: 20–21 March 2023; police statement that the couple are "free to return": 11 October 2024; Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern announce UK political refugee status: 22 October 2024
| citation = No court citation; disclosed via written parliamentary replies (Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean, 2 March 2023) and Singapore Police Force media statements (20–21 March 2023; 11 October 2024)
| outcome = Investigation ongoing, with no statutory deadline for its conclusion; no charges filed; both individuals remain outside Singapore since June 2022 and have both been granted political refugee status by the United Kingdom; Singapore police state there are no legal restraints on their return, without guaranteeing against arrest or passport seizure upon arrival
| related_cases = ''Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern'' [2020] SGHC 255 (source of the false-evidence findings); ''Law Society of Singapore v Kwa Kim Li'' (DT 19 of 2022) (related findings on the same will)
}}
== Background ==
The investigation traces back to the disciplinary proceedings against Lee Suet Fern over her role in the preparation and execution of the last will of her father-in-law, founding Prime Minister [[Lee Kuan Yew]], culminating in the Court of Three Judges' November 2020 decision to suspend her from legal practice for 15 months (see ''[[Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern]]''). 

In the course of those proceedings, both a Disciplinary Tribunal (in a report issued in February 2020) and the Court of Three Judges found that Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern had lied under oath. 

Senior Minister [[Teo Chee Hean]] later told Parliament that the tribunal had found the couple presented "an elaborate edifice of lies... both on oath... and through their public and other statements", and that their affidavits contained lies that "were quite blatant". 

Both bodies additionally found the couple had misled Lee Kuan Yew in the course of the will's execution — Lee Suet Fern, in Teo's account of the findings, had "focused primarily on what her husband wanted done", and worked together with Lee Hsien Yang "with a singular purpose, of getting [Lee Kuan Yew] to execute the last will quickly", such that Lee Kuan Yew "ended up signing a document which was in fact not that which he had indicated he wished to sign".<ref name="st-teo">"Lee Hsien Yang, Lee Suet Fern being investigated for lying under oath, have left country: Teo Chee Hean", ''The Straits Times'', 2 March 2023.</ref>

Following a referral in October 2021, the police opened an investigation into whether the couple had committed the offence of giving false evidence in judicial proceedings.<ref name="st-police-clarify">"Police clarify why Lee Hsien Yang and wife not issued order compelling attendance at interview", ''The Straits Times'', 21 March 2023.</ref>
== Course of the investigation ==
=== Initial contact and the couple's departure (2022) ===
Police first met with Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern on 9 June 2022 to request that they attend an interview concerning the potential false-evidence offence, handing them a letter setting out information about the investigation. 

The couple indicated they would cooperate and would confirm a date. On 13 June 2022, they contacted police to say they would be available on 13 July 2022. According to the police, the couple left Singapore on 15 June 2022 — before that scheduled date — and, when 13 July arrived, e-mailed to say they would not be attending after all. 

Police stated the couple have not returned to Singapore since leaving on 15 June 2022.<ref name="st-police-clarify" />

Police did not issue a formal order under section 21(1) of the Criminal Procedure Code compelling the couple's attendance at the outset, explaining that such orders are generally reserved for cases where a person is assessed as likely to be uncooperative, and the couple had initially appeared cooperative when first approached.<ref name="st-police-clarify" />
=== Public disclosure in Parliament (March 2023) ===
The investigation became public on 2 March 2023, when Teo Chee Hean disclosed it in a written parliamentary reply to a question filed by [[MP]] Zhulkarnain Abdul Rahim, which had asked about the accuracy of an e-book, ''The Battle Over Lee Kuan Yew's Last Will'' by Sudhir Thomas Vadaketh, published in July 2022 by digital magazine ''Jom''. 

Teo used the reply to criticise the e-book as "not credible" for allegedly ignoring the tribunal's and the Court of Three Judges' established findings, and stated the police were investigating Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern for giving false evidence. 

He said the couple had initially agreed to a police interview but "later had a change of heart and refused to attend", calling their refusal "disappointing", and urged them to participate to "clear their names". He noted the police intended to complete the investigation regardless of the couple's participation.<ref name="st-teo" /> 

Vadaketh, in response to media queries, defended the book as the product of a year of research based on affidavits, pleadings and formal court documents, and said it was "exhaustively footnoted".<ref name="st-teo" />

On 20 March 2023, Home Affairs and Law Minister [[K Shanmugam]] told Parliament, in response to questions including one from Workers' Party MP [[Sylvia Lim]] on whether a compelling order had been issued, that it was in the public interest to disclose the investigation given that the couple had "absconded" after initially agreeing to cooperate. 

The police issued a statement on 20–21 March 2023 setting out the interview timeline described above.<ref name="st-police-clarify" />
=== Comparison with the Keppel Offshore & Marine case ===
On 18 March 2023, Non-Constituency MP [[Leong Mun Wai]] of the [[Progress Singapore Party]] filed a parliamentary question asking why Lee Hsien Yang and Lee Suet Fern had been publicly named during their investigation while six former management staff of Keppel Offshore & Marine Limited (KOM) had not been named during a separate investigation into a multi-million-dollar bribery scandal in Brazil, despite the six being identified in a US Department of Justice plea agreement and named in media reports. 

Minister in the Prime Minister's Office [[Indranee Rajah]] had earlier explained that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB), as a matter of policy consistent with law enforcement practice in the US, UK and New Zealand, does not name individuals unless they are charged in court, in order to avoid prejudicing due process and any presumption of guilt; she noted the six KOM staff were not prosecuted for insufficient evidence to establish guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and cautioned that any change to this naming policy would need to apply consistently to all future cases, not selectively.<ref name="toc-leong">"Leong Mun Wai files question to ask why LHY and LSF were named in investigations while six former Keppel executives weren't", ''The Online Citizen'', 18 March 2023, https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/03/18/leong-mun-wai-files-question-to-ask-why-lhy-and-lsf-were-named-in-investigations-while-six-former-keppel-executives-werent.</ref>
=== "Free to return" statement (October 2024) ===
On 11 October 2024, following the death of Lee Hsien Yang's sister, [[Lee Wei Ling]], on 9 October 2024, and renewed public interest in whether he would return for her funeral, the police issued a statement confirming "there are no legal restraints to Mr Lee Hsien Yang and Mrs Lee Suet Fern returning to Singapore. They are and have always been free to return to Singapore." 

The statement repeated the June 2022 timeline and did not otherwise update the status of the investigation.<ref name="toc-freetoreturn">"Police say LHY and LSF free to return, but risk of arrest and passport seizure remains", ''The Online Citizen'', 11 October 2024, https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2024/10/11/police-say-lhy-and-lsf-free-to-return-but-risk-of-arrest-and-passport-seizure-remains.</ref> The police statement did not include any guarantee against arrest or passport seizure upon the couple's return, and TOC noted that Singapore law places no statutory time limit on how long a police investigation may remain open.<ref name="toc-freetoreturn" /> 

Lee Hsien Yang did not attend his sister's funeral in person, citing the risk of state action against him; the funeral arrangements were instead overseen in Singapore by his son, Li Huanwu, in line with Lee Wei Ling's wishes.<ref name="toc-freetoreturn" />
== Reactions ==
Lee Hsien Yang responded to the March 2023 disclosure with a Facebook post accusing Singaporean authorities of "continued persecution" of his family, linking the investigation to the wider dispute over [[38 Oxley Road]] and his family's 2017 public statement that they did not trust Prime Minister [[Lee Hsien Loong]] and feared the use of "organs of the state" against them. 

He also pointed to the earlier ''[[Li Shengwu contempt of court case|contempt of court case against his son, Li Shengwu]]'', and to Lee Suet Fern's own 15-month suspension, as part of the same pattern; Lee Suet Fern denied the underlying allegations, maintaining the case concerned a private family will and that there was no basis for prosecution.<ref name="toc-persecution">"Lee Hsien Yang claims continued persecution by Singaporean authorities", ''The Online Citizen'', 2 March 2023, https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2023/03/02/lee-hsien-yang-claims-continued-persecution-by-singaporean-authorities.</ref>

Li Shengwu commented on the investigation on Twitter/X, writing: "Many families have vindictive relatives. My relatives just happen to control a small authoritarian government," and criticising the Singapore authorities' power to detain individuals "indefinitely, under inhumane conditions, without timely access to a lawyer", concluding: "For the prime minister of Singapore, it's 'rule of law' for thee but not for me."<ref name="toc-persecution" />

Writing in October 2024, TOC editor Terry Xu — himself previously investigated for contempt of court and subject to passport impoundment under section 112 of the Criminal Procedure Code between 2020 and 2022 — drew on his own experience to suggest that the open-ended nature of Singapore police investigations, which carry no statutory deadline for conclusion, offered a plausible explanation for Lee Hsien Yang's reluctance to return despite the police's "free to return" assurance. 

Xu also noted that mainstream coverage of the police statement had omitted the May 2023 findings in ''[[Law Society of Singapore v Kwa Kim Li]]'' — in which a Disciplinary Tribunal found that Kwa Kim Li had in fact been aware of Lee Kuan Yew's intended changes to his will in the weeks before its execution, contrary to her own later assertions to the will's executors — arguing this provided relevant context to the couple's account of events that the government's public statements did not address.<ref name="toc-freetoreturn" />
== Related development: UK political asylum ==
On 22 October 2024, Lee Hsien Yang announced on Facebook that he had been granted political refugee status by the United Kingdom under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, having sought asylum in 2022; Lee Suet Fern was likewise granted refugee status. 

Lee Hsien Yang said the UK government had assessed that he faced a "well-founded risk of persecution" in Singapore, and cited the 2017 public rift with his brother, Lee Suet Fern's suspension, and Li Shengwu's contempt-of-court conviction as the basis for his fear of returning. 

He said he had been unable to attend Lee Wei Ling's funeral because of this risk, adding: "I remain a Singapore citizen and hope that someday it will become safe to return home."<ref name="toc-refugee">"Lee Hsien Yang declares himself a political refugee from Singapore under UN convention", ''The Online Citizen'', 22 October 2024, https://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2024/10/22/lee-hsien-yang-declares-himself-a-political-refugee-from-singapore-under-un-convention.</ref> 

According to United Nations records cited at the time, 40 Singaporean citizens held refugee status worldwide as of mid-2024, with a further 322 seeking asylum.<ref name="toc-refugee" />
== See also ==
* [[Lee Hsien Yang]]
* [[Lee Suet Fern]]
* [[Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern]]
* [[Law Society of Singapore v Kwa Kim Li]]
* [[Li Shengwu contempt of court case]]
* [[38 Oxley Road]]
* [[Lee family (Singapore)]]
== References ==
{{Reflist}}
[[Category:2020s in Singapore]]
[[Category:Lee family (Singapore)]]
[[Category:Singapore police investigations]]