As a result of persecution at home, where a savage family rivalry rages over a property dispute, the youngest son of Singapore’s founding leader Lee Kuan Yew claimed he was granted asylum in Britain.
In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Lee Hsien Yang stated that he applied for asylum in 2022 “as a last resort” due to attacks on him by the government.
“I am a political refugee from Singapore under the 1951 UN Refugee Convention,” Lee, 67, wrote.
“I face a well-founded risk of persecution and cannot safely return to Singapore.”
The Lees are Singapore’s closest thing to royalty, and their dispute over whether to keep the one-story mansion or demolish it has made news and sparked rumours.
The People’s Action Party (PAP), which has ruled Singapore since 1959, was formed in a home that Lee Hsien Yang and his sister intended to destroy.
His siblings accused his eldest brother, former PM Lee Hsien Loong, of attempting to utilise their father’s legacy for political advantage because he wanted to protect the property.
After Lee Wei Ling, who was living at the disputed property, died of an illness on October 9, Lee Hsien Yang had said he felt unsafe to return to Singapore for her funeral.
He said there was a “risk” that his brother would wield “the organs of the Singapore state” against him.
“The Singapore government’s attacks against me are in the public record. They prosecuted my son, brought disciplinary proceedings against my wife, and launched a bogus police investigation that has dragged on for years,” he wrote in his latest Facebook post.
“I remain a Singapore citizen and hope that someday it will become safe to return home,” he added.
The Singapore government has said that the younger Lee’s allegations of persecution are without basis and that he and his wife are free to return to Singapore at any time.
When asked about the asylum claim, a UK Home Office spokesperson told AFP: “It is longstanding government policy that we do not comment on individual cases.”
The Lee family feud became public in 2017, two years after the death of their father, who is credited with transforming the former British colony into a wealthy financial hub.
The property at the centre of the row was the home of founding premier Lee from the mid-1940s until his death.
Lee Hsien Loong, who was prime minister for two decades before stepping down in May, remains the secretary-general of the governing PAP and is a senior minister in the cabinet of his successor.
A ministerial committee tasked with looking at options for the bungalow said in 2018 that the property has “architectural, heritage and historical significance”.
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