The Singaporean prime minister’s brother on Friday accused government authorities of harassing his family after it emerged he and his wife were under official investigation.
Lee Hsien Yang has long disagreed with his brother, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, over the will of their late father, longtime Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who ushered Singapore through independence from Britain.
The family feud had largely subsided until senior minister and national security coordinator Teo Chee Hean told lawmakers that Lee Hsien Yang and his wife, Lee Suet Fern, were under investigation.
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In a written response to parliament made public on Thursday, he said the pair were being investigated over allegations that they had provided false evidence in court proceedings involving the will.
They are accused of lying under oath by a three-judge panel and disciplinary tribunal, Teo Chee Hean wrote.
He told parliament the pair had agreed to talks with police but then declined, which he said was “disappointing”.
“The police advised them to reconsider participating in the investigation, but they have since left Singapore and remained out of the country,” he wrote, according to a copy of the response to parliament provided by his office.
Late Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew’s family members arrive with his portrait at the state funeral in Singapore March 29, 2015. The brother of the current Singapore Prime Minister and son of the late Lee Kuan Yew accuses government authorities of harassing the his family. (AP Photo/Joseph Nair, Files)
Contacted by the Associated Press on Friday, Lee Hsien Yang dismissed the allegations as “another attempt to discredit and attack me”, but said it was “not safe for me to return” to Singapore.
In a Facebook post, Lee Hsien Yang said that he and his sister, Lee Wei Ling, who had joined him in questioning the will’s execution, had long said they “feared the use of State against us and my family.”
“The persecution of my family by the Singaporean authorities continues unabated,” she wrote.
The prime minister’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment, but earlier called his brothers’ allegations of abuse of government power against them “completely baseless”.
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Their father, Lee Kuan Yew, ruled Singapore with an iron grip for more than three decades and is credited with transforming the resource-poor island into a wealthy and vibrant financial center with low crime and almost zero corruption.
After her death in 2015, the brothers clashed over a clause in her will that indicated a family bungalow should be torn down rather than become some sort of tourist attraction.
Lee Hsien Yang and her sister accused her brother, the prime minister, of instead keeping the house to “increase his political capital” as a “visible symbol” of their father.
The prime minister denied the allegations and said he had withdrawn from government decision-making to decide the fate of the house.
Lee Hsien Yang told the AP, however, that his father’s will left no room for doubt and that he “didn’t want to create a sanctuary for himself.”
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“It’s clear my father wanted the house torn down and he made that clear during his lifetime; it was clear in his will,” she said, adding that when the will was approved in 2015 “that was the time to address it.”
Lee Hsien Yang’s son Shengwu Li tweeted that for his parents to return to Singapore for questioning could put them at risk.
“In Singapore, the authorities can hold you indefinitely, in inhumane conditions, without timely access to a lawyer,” wrote Li, an assistant professor of economics at Harvard.
“When a hostile authoritarian government says it wants to ‘interrogate’ you, it’s clear what that means.”
