Singapore Police Issue Contempt Warning To Rights Group Director

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Lawyers for Liberty and director Zaid Malik have been told to refrain from any ‘criminal conduct’ for 24 months or they were be charged with contempt of court.PETALING JAYA: Lawyers for Liberty (LFL) and its director, Zaid Malek, have been issued a “conditional warning” for contempt of court by Singapore police after a 2020 article in which the rights group criticised the dismissal of two suits involving Malaysians on death row in the city-state.
The “conditional warning” orders LFL and Zaid to refrain from any “criminal conduct” for 24 months, failing which they may be charged with contempt of court, punishable with up to three years’ imprisonment, a fine of up to S$100,000 (about RM316,000) or both.
Zaid said he was detained and interrogated by Singapore police over two days when he travelled to Singapore to provide legal advice to the family of Kalwant Singh, who was executed for drug trafficking yesterday.
He described his detention and two sessions of police interrogation as “calculated intimidation and harassment” due to his work in representing Malaysian death row prisoners and speaking out against Singapore’s death penalty.

“What is also serious is that I was being detained and probed over a statement issued in Malaysia, and not in Singapore,” he said in a statement.
“By doing so, the Singapore authorities are now dangerously claiming extra-territorial jurisdiction over Malaysian citizens making statements on Malaysian soil.”
Zaid said that upon his arrival in Singapore on Monday, an immigration officer made him wait four hours before police told him he was to be investigated for contempt of court over a 2020 statement regarding the plight of Malaysian death row prisoners in Singapore.
He was warned not to leave the country until police completed their investigation.
During the police investigation on Wednesday, he said, he was served with a notice alleging that he had committed contempt of court by issuing a statement in Malaysia, published by a local news portal, regarding comments he made about the dismissal of suits filed by Malaysian death row prisoners Gobi Avedian and Datchinamurty Katiah.
Later in the night, police told him their investigation had found that he “had committed an offence of contempt of court”, and he was served the two “conditional warning” letters – the first addressed to him and the second to LFL.
The statement, published on his Facebook page, also included a picture of the purported warning letter issued to him.
He said that as a result of the police investigation, he was “obstructed and hampered” from advising Kalwant’s family before his final appeal against his execution, despite informing the police that this was the purpose of his visit.
Singapore’s Court of Appeal dismissed Kalwant’s final appeal on Wednesday, and he was hanged along with co-accused, Singaporean national Norasharee Gous, yesterday.
Kalwant, 32, had been convicted in June 2016 of possessing 60.15gm of diamorphine and trafficking 120.9gm of the drug in the city-state. - FMT

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