An activist blogger was Thursday ordered to pay Singapore’s Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong Sg$150,000 ($106,000) in damages for accusing him of stealing state funds.
Roy Ngerng, a former government employee, had accused Lee of criminally misappropriating money from the Central Provident Fund (CPF), the city-state’s multibillion-dollar pension system, Judge Lee Seiu Kin ruled at Singapore’s High Court.
“I have found the defendant to have acted out of malice,” he said in a written ruling.
“He had, to put it simply, called the plaintiff a thief when what he wanted to do was to criticise the CPF policy of the government headed by the plaintiff.”
Singapore has consistently ranked highly in surveys as one of the world’s least corrupt countries, but rights groups say its leaders have used financially ruinous defamation suits to silence critics and political opponents.