MFA director-general appeals jail term over diplomatic bag use, questions prosecution’s changed stance

SINGAPORE: A director-general at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) took to the High Court on Tuesday (Oct 1) to appeal against his one-week jail term for lying to the ministry over his use of diplomatic bags.
Gilbert Oh Hin Kwan, 45, had pleaded guilty in April to a charge of giving false information to a public servant. 
He had lied to his superior that the luxury watches found in a package dispatched on his instruction belonged to his father, among other things.
In reality, the watches and other items belonged to Oh’s friend in China. Oh had agreed to help transport the items from China to Singapore as a personal favour and asked an unwitting colleague at MFA attached to the Singapore embassy in Beijing to help convey the package via the diplomatic bag service.
The colleague wound up carrying the package in his luggage on a flight from China to Singapore in January 2023 as the diplomatic bag service was suspended at the time, and the luggage was screened by Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers at Changi Airport, prompting investigations by the police and MFA.
In the lower court, both the defence and the prosecution had sought only fines. 
Oh’s then lawyer, Mr Shashi Nathan of Withers KhattarWong, asked for a fine of less than S$5,000 (US$3,880), while the prosecution asked for S$6,000 to S$9,000.
District Judge Sharmila Sripathy-Shanaz, however, found that jail should be given and imposed a week’s imprisonment on Oh.
She said the offence risked diminishing the credibility of MFA and the public service as a whole, as Oh’s objective was to disrupt MFA’s internal investigations into his conduct. 
He was also a high-ranking public servant seeking to subvert investigations, which means potential harm to the public interest was more pronounced, said the district judge.
On Tuesday, Oh appealed against his jail term and asked for a fine instead, with a new set of lawyers led by Senior Counsel Tan Chee Meng from WongPartnership.
Mr Tan questioned the prosecution’s purported change in stance, asking why they had originally asked for a fine but were now asking for the one-week jail term to be upheld.
He asked what changed that caused the prosecution to make a “180-degree turn”.
He provided letters from the prosecution, claiming that there was an agreement that if Oh pleaded guilty, he would be given a fine.
The appeal judge then interjected to say that a decision is ultimately up to the judge despite what the prosecution asks for, and Mr Tan acknowledged this.
Mr Tan asked the court to set aside the “manifestly excessive” one-week jail term and uphold the prosecution’s original sentencing submission for a fine, saying the district judge had “failed to properly appreciate the facts before her and exercised her discretion contrary to principle or law”.
In response, Deputy Public Prosecutor Tan Pei Wei rejected the notion that Oh’s plea relied on the plea offer and the prosecution’s original sentencing position. 
She said there were other previous letters exchanged that are relevant, but that she needed time to retrieve them as Mr Tan was making this argument only now.
Ms Tan added that it was clear from the previous defence counsel’s submissions that Oh had always wanted to plead guilty.
She added that while the prosecution had not sought a jail term in the first instance, it did not mean that the prosecution was “precluded from defending the district judge’s sentencing decision when that decision (was) legally sound and reasonably defensible”.
Justice Dedar Singh Gill, who heard the appeal arguments, asked the prosecutor to produce the additional letters and directed both sides to tell him how they construed the letters.
He adjourned the case to a later date.
Oh, who was grim-faced throughout most of the hearing, remains out on bail pending appeal.
The court previously heard that he had offered MFA his resignation, but this could not be processed while his case was ongoing.
The penalty for giving false information to a public servant is imprisonment for up to two years, a fine, or both.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article said that the watches were carried in a diplomatic bag. That is incorrect. They were carried in a package. We apologise for the error.