Healing the Divide founder Iris Koh charged with fabricating false evidence

SINGAPORE - The founder of anti-vaccine group Healing the Divide has been handed six more charges, mainly over alleged false representations made to the Ministry of Health (MOH) involving vaccination certificates against Covid-19.

Iris Koh, 47, was on Thursday accused of committing the offences with then general practitioner Jipson Quah, 34, and five other people on five occasions in 2021.

The five are: Ms Amy Lee, Ms Carrie Tan Kia Lee, Mr Steven Teo, Mr Bobby Teo and one Goh Yao Zhen. Details about them were not disclosed in court documents.

The seven people had allegedly made false representations to MOH that Ms Lee, Ms Tan, Mr Steven Teo, Mr Bobby Teo and one Goh Tua Buk were given the Sinopharm vaccine when they had not.

Mr Goh Tua Buk’s details were also not disclosed.

They purportedly did this so that they could each obtain a certificate of vaccination against Covid-19.

Koh was handed five charges of being part of a conspiracy to make false representations.

She was also charged with one count of fabricating false evidence.

Koh is accused of instigating one Tee Hui Yee on Nov 5, 2021 to be falsely certified to be of unsound mind. She allegedly wanted to use the certification as evidence in a judicial proceeding.

The charge describes Koh’s intention as to cause the police to entertain an erroneous opinion on whether Quah had improperly administered Sinopharm vaccines of a lower dosage to patients.

Tee’s details were also not disclosed in court documents.

Koh now faces 10 charges in all. These include other charges of making false representations.

Her bail was set at $30,000 on Thursday and her pre-trial conference will be held on Friday.

On Jan 9, a Magistrate’s Court dismissed a complaint which she had filed against police officers.

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Koh, who was arrested in January 2022, had lodged the complaint against four police officers whom she claimed had mishandled personal items seized from her after her arrest and, as a result, breached protocol.

A magistrate’s complaint is an application for a magistrate to examine an alleged criminal offence and give directions for further action.

Among other things, Koh claimed that the items seized on Nov 18, 2022 – her laptop, mobile phone and e-mail disk – had been stored in envelopes instead of being sealed in tamper-proof bags.

She said this would result in the chain of custody of evidence being compromised and thus be inadmissible in court.

In his grounds of decision, Senior Magistrate Hamzah Moosa stated that Koh was concerned that fraudulent evidence could have been planted in her electronic devices.

The senior magistrate added: “Her belief that the chain of custody of evidence seized during her arrest was compromised and no longer admissible in court are matters that are directly connected to and within the sole purview of the trial court.”

He said such matters should be dealt with by the judge during a trial instead.

Quah has been since been suspended over administering fake Covid-19 jabs to multiple patients, and his case is pending.

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