Singapore - The Prime Minister, Mr Goh Chok Tong, emerged yesterday as the victor from a bruising and landmark libel action against the Singaporean opposition leader, Mr Joshua Jeyaretnam, but with only a fraction of the damages he had sought.
Mr Goh won 20,000 Singapore dollars (£9,000), a tenth of the damages he wanted. The incident which gave rise to it was his announcing at a political rally that a fellow member of his Workers' Party had filed a police report against Mr Goh, the Senior Minister, Mr Lee Kuan Yew, and nine other senior members of the ruling People's Action Party. The unusually low award is "probably going to be perceived as a bit of a slap in the face for the government", a lawyer said.