Iswaran's lawyers ask for corruption charges to be tried jointly as both businessmen involved are his 'dear friends'

Source: TODAY

SINGAPORE -- Lawyers for former transport minister S Iswaran have asked the High Court to hear all 35 charges against him in a single trial rather than in two separate trials as proposed by the prosecution.

Among other arguments, Senior Counsel Davinder Singh, Iswaran's lead defence lawyer, said his client was dealing with "close and dear friends" in both of the two sets of charges, relating to property tycoon Ong Beng Seng and businessman David Lum Kok Seng.

Mr Singh opposed the holding of separate trials for the initial 27 charges relating to his client's dealings with Mr Ong and the subsequent eight charges relating to his dealings with Mr Lum. He said the question of Iswaran's friendship with both men would be "highly relevant".

"To ask for (the trials) to be separated, is to disadvantage the defence - and I can't think of a greater prejudice," Mr Singh told the court on Wednesday (May 8).

The prosecution is proposing that the trial of the eight charges over Iswaran's dealings with Mr Lum, managing director of Lum Chang Building Contractors, be heard first.

Mr Singh submitted that the prosecution was doing so in order to preview the defence in that trial ahead of a separate trial of the charges related to Mr Ong, which he argued was "the heart of the case".

The 27 original charges handed to Iswaran on Jan 18 were mostly related to alleged bribery and corruption, and were linked to his interactions with Malaysian billionaire Ong, who owns the rights to the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix.

The eight fresh charges handed to Iswaran on March 25 25 included charges for allegedly obtaining a range of valuable items - including bottles of whisky, a Brompton bicycle and golf clubs - from Mr Lum, whose firm is involved in construction works on Tanah Merah MRT Station. In response, Deputy Attorney-General Tai Wei Shyong said that the prosecution had the prerogative to decide which charges to proceed on in criminal proceedings.

He also offered a "simple explanation" to why the prosecution had tendered the charges separately.

Mr Tai said that the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) did not report to the Attorney-General's Chambers (AGC), and that the CPIB conducted investigations independently in accordance with their mandates.

When the original charges associated with Mr Ong were tendered in court on Jan 18, the investigations on the charges associated with Mr Lum were still ongoing, he said.

These investigations were completed more than a month after the charges associated with Mr Ong were tendered in court.

Thereafter, the prosecution tendered the eight additional charges on Mar 25, as soon as they could.

"In an ideal world, all charges should have been tendered together," said DAG Tai, who added that this was however not possible given the investigation timeline.

Later, when the additional charges were tendered, the prosecution decided to proceed with those first.

Responding to Mr Singh's drawing of parallels between the two sets of charges associated with Mr Ong and Mr Lum, Mr Tai argued that there were no factual connections - as they relate to accepting different gifts in different contexts.

The charges also relate to different contracts - one with the Land Transport Authority, and the other with the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix.

Mr Tai added that the only way to proceed with a joint trial would be if section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code was satisfied.

Section 133 states that when a person is accused of two or more offences, the person may be charged with and tried at one trial for any number of those offences, if the offences are the same or similar.

Iswaran, 61, was represented by Mr Singh, Mr Navin Thevar and Mr Rajvinder Singh of Davinder Singh Chambers.

The hearing before Justice Vincent Hoong is continuing.