SINGAPORE - Activist lawyer M. Ravi no longer represents Daniel De Costa Augustin, a contributor to sociopolitical website The Online Citizen (TOC), who was earlier convicted of defaming Cabinet members.
De Costa, 38, is now represented by Mr Chung Ting Fai, who appeared before District Judge Ng Peng Hong on Wednesday (March 16).
The reason behind this change of lawyers was not disclosed in open court.
It was, however, reported earlier this year that Mr Ravi, who has bipolar disorder, has had his medical certificate (MC) extended.
In December last year, the Law Society of Singapore (LawSoc) said that Mr Ravi must stop practising law for six weeks after receiving an MC from his attending psychiatrist.
LawSoc had said this was a safeguard in Mr Ravi's conditional practising certificate, which was granted in 2019.
Among the conditions of the certificate, he has to stop practising law if his attending psychiatrist prescribes at least three days of medical leave within any period of 14 calendar days.
The society had also noted that the MC was dated from Dec 2 last year to Jan 13 this year, both dates included.
But Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy said in an unrelated proceeding at the High Court on Jan 28 that Mr Ravi was still on medical leave.
The DPP did not disclose the reasons behind the extension of the lawyer's MC.
For the current case, TOC editor Xu Yuanchen, 39, better known as Terry Xu, and De Costa were each convicted in November last year of one count of defaming Cabinet members.
Judge Ng also found De Costa guilty of an offence under the Computer Misuse Act.
Xu is represented by lawyers Remy Choo and Priscilla Chia.
De Costa had penned a letter that defamed Cabinet members and sent it from an e-mail account of his friend, Mr Sim Wee Lee.
The letter was titled "PAP MP apologises to SDP" and sent to TOC from Mr Sim's Yahoo account in September 2018.
The court heard that the letter stated, among other things, that there was "corruption at the highest echelons" of the People's Action Party leadership.
The sociopolitical website then published the letter with the title "The Take Away From Seah Kian Ping's (sic) Facebook Post" and attributed it to Willy Sum, a name sometimes used by Mr Sim.
TOC and its various social media channels were taken offline in September last year, ahead of a deadline set by the Infocomm Media Development Authority (IMDA).
This development came after IMDA had earlier suspended TOC's class licence to run its website and social media channels due to its repeated failure to comply with legal obligations to declare all sources of funding.
The cases involving Xu and De Costa have been adjourned to April 8 for their mitigation and sentencing.
For defamation, an offender can be jailed for up to two years and fined.
