The criminal defamation trial of The Online Citizen (TOC) website’s chief editor Terry Xu, 38, and TOC contributor Daniel De Costa, 37, began yesterday, over an e-mail letter penned by De Costa that allegedly defamed Cabinet members.

De Costa is said to have sent that and other inflammatory material from the e-mail account of his friend, Mr Sim Wee Lee, who took the witness stand yesterday.

In his examination of Mr Sim, Deputy Public Prosecutor Senthilkumaran Sabapathy sought to establish that De Costa had used Mr Sim’s e-mail accounts without permission on multiple occasions since 2011.

The case involves an e-mail that De Costa sent to TOC from Mr Sim’s Yahoo account in September 2018.

The letter stated, among other things, that there was “corruption at the highest echelons” of the People’s Action Party leadership.

TOC, a sociopolitical website, then published the letter and attributed it to Willy Sum, a name sometimes used by Mr Sim.

Xu and De Costa were each charged with one count of criminal defamation in December 2018 for defaming members of the Singapore Cabinet in the letter.

De Costa was also charged under the Computer Misuse Act for using Mr Sim’s Yahoo e-mail account to send the letter without permission.

Yesterday, Mr Sim testified that he had shared the passwords to his Yahoo and Gmail accounts with De Costa after they became friends some time between 2005 and 2006.

He did so as his own command of English was poor and he needed De Costa’s help to compose and send e-mails to government officials on his behalf, Mr Sim told the court through a Mandarin interpreter.

“I was very grateful to Daniel because, at the time, I was facing bankruptcy proceedings and also problems with HDB and traffic summonses issued against me,” he said.

The court heard that, aside from the appeals that Mr Sim had asked De Costa to write, his e-mail accounts were also being used to send politically charged e-mails on more than 20 occasions since 2011, including complaints addressed to various politicians and government agencies, as well as letters to TOC and other websites.

The letters commented on various political matters such as the General Election, MPs’ exchanges in Parliament and the Oxley Road dispute between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his siblings, among other things. Some were published in TOC under different variants of Mr Sim’s name, such as “WL Sum” and “Willy Sim”.

Mr Sim said the unauthorised e-mails were likely written by De Costa as nobody else had access to his e-mail accounts.

However, even after he learnt of the unauthorised e-mails, Mr Sim said he did not change his passwords or take other steps to prevent De Costa from using his accounts, as his issues had not been resolved and he still needed De Costa’s help.

“I was very angry because the many e-mails did not go through me. His e-mails were mostly criticising government officers and making bad comments about them,” Mr Sim told the court.

“I treated him as a friend and asked him not to send messages or post anything to criticise government officers. I was also worried something might happen to him.”

Mr Sim said it came as a surprise when police came knocking in November 2018 to investigate the defamation offence and confiscate his phone and computer. He then told police that De Costa was the only other person who had access to the Yahoo account used to send the allegedly defamatory letter.

The prosecutor asked how the defamation investigation had affected his life, to which Mr Sim said he had faced many difficulties in the last two years that left him feeling “on the verge of a breakdown”.

He said: “I only hope this matter will come to an end soon. As for Daniel’s actions, I don’t know if he intentionally or unintentionally brought harm to me, but I choose to forgive him.”

The trial continues today, with lawyers for the defence cross-examining Mr Sim.