Oh look, we didn鈥檛 even have to wait till the weekend for Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong to shoot back with a proper聽rebuttal to his siblings鈥 allegations of him abusing his power.
Presumably still away on family holiday, the PM Lee has asked his lawyers to release an extensive statement clarifying his side of the story in the conflict regarding what to do with Lee Kuan Yew鈥檚 house at 38 Oxley Road.
鈥淚 had hoped that I could defer considering this matter further until after I return from leave. But my siblings have continued to give interviews and make allegations against me. This makes it untenable for me not to respond publicly to the allegations and to explain why I have serious questions about how my father鈥檚 Last Will was prepared.鈥
We don鈥檛 know about you, but we鈥檙e getting tired of having to sit down and pore through all the Lee鈥檚 lawyer-vetted statements that go up to the thousands in word count. So go grab hot cuppa, sit down and read the prime minister鈥檚 dismissal of his siblings allegations .
Here鈥檚 our best attempt at TL;DR-ing the wall of text:
The clause where it states that 38 Oxley Road is to be demolished appeared in the first draft of Lee Kuan Yew鈥檚 will, but it was taken out in later drafts. The clause found its way back in the final iteration of the will, and PM Lee only came to know about its contents only on Apr 12, 2015 鈥 after his father鈥檚 death.
He grew suspicious about the changes made, so he dug through old emails and found out that his sister Dr Lee Wei Li also had her concerns that her younger brother Lee Hsien Yang and his wife 鈥減ulled a fast one鈥 regarding the share of Lee Kuan Yew鈥檚 estate.
Till today, PM Lee remains concerned about the circumstances of how the Last Will was prepared, especially since there appeared to be a conflict on interest 鈥 Hsien Yang was a beneficiary of the will, and his wife was intimately involved in the signing of it.
鈥淚n fact, there is no evidence that Mr Lee even knew that the Demolition Clause had been re-inserted into the Last Will.鈥
There鈥檙e more details in the story of course, so feel free read through the original text to get the full picture.
Moments after PM Lee issued the statement, Hsien Yang issued his own rebuttals on Facebook.
Then his sister joined in, straight up calling PM Lee and his wife 鈥渕ischievous鈥 and 鈥渄ishonest鈥 to selectively user her quotes on of context. She claimed that both of 鈥榚m were unhappy that she was given the right to live at the Oxley Road house, to the point that they 鈥減ushed and persuaded鈥 Lee Kuan Yew about the issue. It resulted in her losing the right to stay at the house, and her share being reduced to only a life interest 鈥 and it was Hsien Yang鈥檚 wife who helped get her rights and shares reinstated.
And now the country awaits further rebuttals to each other鈥檚 rebuttals; we did warn you that you鈥檙e gonna need to stock up on popcorn.
