THE former chief executive of construction company Tiong Seng Holdings and a director of its unit, Tiong Seng Contractors, were on Friday (Oct 11) acquitted of their corruption charges.
The district court ruled that “serious questions about the fairness and reliability of the investigative process” had been raised in the cases against Pek Lian Guan and Pay Teow Heng. The pair stepped down from their respective positions as chief executive of Tiong Seng Holdings and director of Tiong Seng Contractors shortly after they were charged in 2020 for trying to give loans to a Land Transport Authority (LTA) official.
District Judge Soh Tze Bian came to the decision based on the conduct of two investigating officers (IOs), who had, among other things, admitted to “framing” the accused and altering the statements they had made.
The judge said that the prosecution had thus failed to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt on the part of Pek, 59, and his 56-year-old cousin, Pay.
Pek was accused of aiding Pay in giving loans totalling about S$350,000 to ex-deputy group director of the LTA, Henry Foo Yung Thye. Pek and Pay were each charged with two counts of graft offences.
DJ Soh, in a 52-page written judgment, noted that the statements taken by two officers of the Corrupt Practices Investigation Bureau (CPIB) were “inaccurate, unreliable and unsafe” to rely on.
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Investigating officer Chris Lim had apparent pre-determination of Pay’s guilt before he recorded a statement from the accused, the court found.
After Pay made amendments to his second statement to the CPIB, Lim’s manner of handling the amendments also suggested a deliberate attempt to obscure the process and potentially manipulate the content of the statement, said the judgment.
When Pay marked up the statement with the changes he intended to make, Lim took the statement to another room and retyped it in his own words. This left Pay without any clear indication of how Lim had integrated his changes, and made it impossible for the accused to verify whether his amendments were accurately reflected.
Another investigating officer, identified only as Jeffrey, admitted under cross-examination that he used a “cut-and-paste” method to compile the self-incriminating statement recorded from Pek.
The court, commenting on Jeffrey’s behaviour, said “it did not matter to him whether Pek in fact repeated himself in that manner, implying that the repetition might not reflect the true nature of Pek’s interview responses”.
The judge noted: “By IO Jeffrey’s own admission, he drafted Pek’s first statement with the intention to ‘frame’ Pek, focusing almost exclusively on recording information that supported Pek’s culpability, rather than objectively establishing the facts of the case.”
Jeffrey crafted Pek’s statement to create the impression that the accused was the originator of a corrupt scheme; Jeffrey was also selective about the details that were recorded, and went for those that would imply Pek’s guilt, instead of providing a balanced and factual account, the court found.
Pek was represented by senior counsel Cavinder Bull, and Pay, by Tan Chee Meng.
A spokesperson for the Attorney-General’s Chambers, responding to queries from The Business Times, said the AGC is studying the judgment and will decide on the next course of action thereafter.
The LTA official was in 2021 given a 5½-year jail term for taking about S$1.24 million in bribes in the form of loans from contractors and subcontractors. He resigned from his post in 2019, The Straits Times reported.