High Court rejects Iswaran's bid to compel prosecution to provide statements of trial witnesses

SINGAPORE — A High Court judge has rejected a bid by former transport minister S. Iswaran to compel the prosecution to provide conditioned statements of all the 56 witnesses it has lined up for his upcoming trial on 35 charges.

A conditioned statement is a mode of giving evidence in a written statement, rather than oral testimony, often to expedite court proceedings.

On July 19, Justice Vincent Hoong found that the prosecution is only required to include such statements of witnesses that it intends to admit at the trial.

He added that he was unable to accept defence arguments that there was an abuse of process or serious injustice caused to Iswaran in this case.

Iswaran's lawyers, led by Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, had argued before Justice Hoong on July 5 that the prosecution should provide conditioned statements of all its witnesses as part of its pre-trial disclosure obligation under the law.

The prosecution, led by Deputy Attorney-General Tai Wei Shyong, argued that the law only requires the prosecution to provide those conditioned statements that are intended to be used during the trial.

The prosecution said that since it does not intend to rely on conditioned statements for Iswaran's trial, none were recorded from the witnesses, and thus, none were provided to the defence.

The prosecution added that it has disclosed "more than enough" to the defence.

The material it has disclosed include 66 statements recorded from Iswaran and documentary evidence totalling 1,156 pages, as well as 37 statements recorded from seven witnesses during investigations by the Corrupt Practices Investigations Bureau.

Among these prosecution witnesses are Iswaran's wife, Kay Mary Taylor; hotel and property tycoon, Ong Beng Seng; and managing director of mainboard-listed Lum Chang Holdings, David Lum Kok Seng.

Of the 35 charges Iswaran faces, two are for corruption involving about $166,000. Another 32 counts are for obtaining items worth more than $237,000 as a public servant, while one is for obstructing the course of justice.

The charges relate to his dealing with Ong and Lum.

The application before Justice Hoong was the second time the defence team sought a court order for the prosecution to provide conditioned statements.

The first attempt was dismissed on June 11 by an assistant registrar, who concluded that the law did not require conditioned statements to be recorded for every witness that the prosecution intended to call at the trial.

The defence then filed an application, known as a criminal revision, for a High Court judge to review the assistant registrar's decision.

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This article was first published in The Straits Times. Permission required for reproduction.