Singapore jails man for threatening PM Lee Hsien Loong on Facebook

Kong Chee Kian, a 46-year-old Singaporean man, was sentenced to four months’ jail on Wednesday for one count of inciting violence electronically.

He had difficulty finding permanent employment due to health issues and was “looking for someone to blame”, so he chose to blame the government, the prosecution said.

On July 8, 2022, Kong was at home browsing the internet on his handphone.

The article was posted by CNA on its Facebook page with an accompanying caption stating that the man is believed to have shot Abe.

Kong left a comment on the Facebook post, saying: “Pls someone do the same to our PM.”

Another Facebook user replied him and asked if this was a threat to Lee.

The police received a report soon after from an anonymous person who stated that someone had made threats to “our PM” and that they hoped action could be taken. The person said they were “not sure if this is a troll”.

Kong was arrested that same day.

Investigations revealed that he had made other online comments related to Lee.

After making the comment on CNA’s Facebook page, Kong saw a post by the prime minister.

Lee had uploaded a photo of himself with Abe on his page, stating his shock over the shooting and condemning the “senseless act of violence”.

Kong left a comment in Mandarin, which was translated in court documents to: “If you are going the right way, afraid that people would plot against you but you are not.”

Kong later said he was trying to express his view in this comment that PM Lee “was not a good person”, therefore “other people will plot against him”.

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Kong posted another comment on a Facebook post by Yahoo Singapore about Abe’s death after the shooting.

He wrote