Crossing paths with Lee Kuan Yew’s offspring can be dangerous, even
when they’re not officially in positions of
power. Asia Sentinel:
The Singapore government has declined to reappoint Attorney
General Walter Woon after his two years on the job expired earlier
this month. Woon was earlier criticized by Lee Wei Ling, the
daughter of Singaporean patriarch Lee Kuan Yew. Wei Ling is the
head of the National Neuroscience Institute.
In 2008 Woon brought a case against CK Tang department store
chairman Tang Wee Sum for attempting to buy a kidney for
transplanting. Both Lee Wei Ling and Lee Kuan Yew voiced
public disapproval of Woon for bringing the charges against
Tang. He answered back, pointing out what he called a number
of misconceptions she held as to the facts and the law, and
emphasizing that he had brought the case in a move
to implement the law without favor. (Tang got a day’s jail and
a small fine, the poor young Indonesian would-be donor got two
weeks).
The law was changed in March of 2009 to align with Lee
Wei Ling’s position. Singaporeans can now pay for
organs which in practice means from poor people in neighboring
countries but where organ sales are illegal.
In a defiant interview in the Straits
Times newspaper, Woon, a professor of law with a
distinguished record with the National University of Singapore
Faculty of Law, Dean of the Singapore Institute of Legal Education
and as a former ambassador to Germany and
Belgium, was asked if he thought he had “annoyed the powers
that be.”
“It’s not unlikely that I have,” he said. “Look, to be fair,
nobody called me in the middle of the night to say ‘you must do
this, you must do that. If they were unhappy, they did
not make it known to me while I was AG.”
But, he added, “‘Whether or not they’re happy with me – this
one you’ve got to ask PM (Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong). This is
a mutual parting of ways. Best to leave before you outstay your
welcome, although I think amongst some people, I’ve already
outstayed my welcome.”
http://leewatch.info/2010/04/24/singapore-officials-show-some-spine…/