Following the emergence of the viral video showing Leon Perera and Nicole Seah having an intimate dinner date at an unnamed restaurant, AsiaOne published an interview on 18 July with Perera’s former driver, who exposed the latter’s various dinner dates and hotel visits with Seah.
The following day, The Online Citizen Asia published an article titled “AsiaOne’s quick access to Leon Perera’s former driver: Coincidence or calculated move?”
The article seemingly insinuated that the Minister of Law and Home Affairs could have tipped off an employee of AsiaOne about the driver, and Shanmugam has since issued a public statement denying the allegations and calling TOCA out for “publishing recklessly”.
Shanmugam’s public statement on Facebook
[False post by The Online Citizen Asia]
TOCA has put up a post, today, which is false in relation to me.
First there is a suggestion that an employee of AsiaOne, Edmund Chua used to work in my Constituency. That is so. The innuendo is that I must have tipped off Edmund to contact the ex driver of Mr Perera, and that is how Asia One managed to get him.
This is false. I do not know the ex driver, I do not have his contact or name, and I did not tip off or give any information on the ex driver to anyone including AsiaOne – I have no such information. And I haven’t dealt with or spoken with Edmund Chua about this matter at all.
TOCA refers to a visit to I made to AsiaOne. It was not days before the video surfaced . I wasn’t even in Singapore for a week, until the evening of 17 July (Monday).
I visited AsiaOne on 13 June, to speak with its journalists. I also visited Mothership, in the same period, on 22 June. This is part of my regular engagement with a broad section of society, including public and private institutions, schools, IHLs, journalists from mainstream and online media and so on.
TOCA continues to publish recklessly, without any regard for the truth.
AsiaOne’s statement
