Letter to the Editor – The New York Times, 15 January 2025

Singapore Ambassador to the United States, Mr Lui Tuck Yew, wrote to the New York Times in response to the article “Why Singapore’s First Family Is Locked in a Bitter Feud Over a House”, published on 11 January 2025. The New York Times has yet to give the Singapore Government the right of reply.

The full text of Ambassador Lui’s letter is below.

15 January 2025

The New York Times

To the Editor:

I refer to your article “Why Singapore’s First Family Is Locked in a Bitter Feud Over a House” on 11 January 2025.

First, Singapore does not have a “first family”. Nobody – least of all the offspring of Lee Kuan Yew – is above the law.

Second, you append online a befuddling but revealing “correction” to an earlier version of the article.

The correction states that “a panel of judges ruled that Lee Suet Fern…had given a contrived and ultimately untrue account of her role in the will; it did not rule that she and her husband, Lee Hsien Yang, had lied under oath”. 

How is “contrived and ultimately untrue” not a lie?

Indeed, the judges had also said Lee Hsien Yang “was not telling the truth” in his sworn evidence in an earlier disciplinary proceeding,^[1] and that Lee Suet Fern had acted “with a degree of dishonesty” in those proceedings.^[2]

That is why the police investigated the couple for possible perjury. They refused to cooperate and left the country, claiming persecution.

Like many others, the couple benefited from the system that Lee Kuan Yew helped build – in their case, more handsomely than most, given their abilities.

They now claim that that system is deeply flawed; criticise both Lee Kuan Yew as well as his wife, whose legacies they claim to protect; and cynically lend themselves as proof that the western liberal media is right to criticise “authoritarian” Lee Kuan Yew and Singapore.

Yours sincerely,

Lui Tuck Yew

Singapore Ambassador to the United States

^[1] “… Having regard to all the circumstances and the reasons given by the DT for rejecting this account (as summarised at [98] above), we agree with and affirm the DT’s finding that Mr LHY was not telling the truth when he said that he was the one who had forwarded the Draft Last Will to the Respondent. For the same reasons, we also agree with and affirm the DT’s finding that the Respondent’s evidence on this issue, which echoed Mr LHY’s, was similarly untrue and to be rejected.” (Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern (alias Lim Suet Fern) [2020] 5 SLR 1151, at [101]).

^[2] “… the Respondent did act with a degree of dishonesty in the disciplinary proceedings, in that she sought to downplay her participation in the preparation and execution of the Last Will by giving a contrived and ultimately untrue account of her role, in particular, as regards the circumstances which led her to send the 7.08pm e-mail on 16 December 2013 and how she obtained the Draft Last Will attached to that e-mail.” (Law Society of Singapore v Lee Suet Fern (alias Lim Suet Fern) [2020] 5 SLR 1151, at [159(b)]).