Doctor Jipson Quah aged 33 and his assistant Thomas Chua Cheng Soon aged 40 who have been kept in remand since 21 January 2022 have been offered bail today (31 Jan).
Background
Both Quah and Chua were accused of trying to defraud the Ministry of Health (MOH) together with a patient named Mehrajunnisha by falsely declaring her vaccinated with Sinopharm even though she was not.
It led to MOH issuing her a vaccination certificate.
No longer required to be in custody for investigations
The prosecution said today that both Quah and Chua were no longer required to be kept in police custody for investigation purposes.
Quah was offered a bail amount of $20,000 and the case was proposed to be adjourned for six weeks for further investigations to take place.
He was also instructed by the Deputy Public Prosecutor not to have any forms of communications with Chua and Iris Koh of Healing the Divide, as they are both linked to the case.
Quah’s lawyer had also pointed out that Quah would still have to communicate with some of the witnesses in the case due to work purposes.
The judge then said that he was allowed to communicate with the witnesses only for work purposes.
For Chua’s case, the prosecution asked for a similar adjournment and a bail of $15,000 was offered to him.
Chua had previously said that he did no deserve a heavier charge as he was only acting as a middleman and doing his job as a doctor’s assistant.
As for Healing the Divide Founder, Iris Koh, she will make an urgent application to the High Court for the purposes of obtaining bail on Monday morning.
Penalties
If Quah and Chua are convicted of dishonestly making a false representation, both of them are liable for a jail term up to 20 years, fined or both.
Image source: Jipson Quah/Facebook