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Jean Iau

SCMP’s Asia desk

Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong on Thursday night attended the wake of his sister Lee Wei Ling.
Senior Minister Lee, 72, had been on the opposite side of a public row with his younger sister and brother Lee Hsien Yang over what to do with their family home at 38 Oxley Road.
The minister, dressed in a white short-sleeve shirt, arrived at the wake with his wife Ho Ching, 71, and son Li Hongyi, 37, at about 8.25pm. They did not stop to speak to the media.
They left from the back door of the Singapore Casket building at Lavender Street, where the wake was being held, after about 15 minutes.
Li Yipeng, another of Senior Minister Lee’s sons, earlier arrived alone at about 3pm.
Close to midnight on Wednesday and a day after his sister’s death, Lee Hsien Yang, who is based overseas, posted on Facebook that he was conveying a message from his late sibling: “My father’s, Lee Kuan Yew, and my mother’s, Kwa Geok Choo, unwavering and deeply felt wish was for their house at 38 Oxley Road, Singapore 238629 to be demolished upon the last parent’s death.”
Lee Wei Ling, the daughter of Singapore’s first prime minister, died at home at the age of 69, four years after being diagnosed with progressive supranuclear palsy, a rare and degenerative brain disease.
She and Lee Hsien Yang, 67, had been estranged from their eldest sibling, Senior Minister Lee Hsien Loong, over their family home, where she lived, following their father’s death.
According to a source who declined to be named, Lee Hsien Loong is not invited to the private funeral of Lee Wei Ling. The wake is open to all.












View this post on Instagram























A post shared by Lee Hsien Yang (@leehsienyang.sg)



The younger Lee brother on Wednesday night quoted his sister: “Lee Kuan Yew had directed each of his three children to ensure that their parents’ wish for demolition be fulfilled. He had also appealed directly to the people of Singapore.
“Please honour my father by honouring his wish for his home to be demolished.”
He also said his sister had wanted a “simple private send-off”.
“Wei Ling believed in treating people equally. Respects can be paid on a strict queue basis for everyone. There will be no exceptions, not even for VIPs.”
On Thursday afternoon, family members, politicians and members of the public arrived to pay their respects to Lee Wei Ling.
Senior Minister Teo Chee Hean was spotted entering the Singapore Casket building at about 5.30pm but did not speak to the media.
Flowers sent by “Yang, Fern, Shengwu”, presumably from Lee Hsien Yang, Lee Suet Fern and Li Shengwu, arrived too. Lee Hsien Yang and his wife Lee Suet Fern are believed to be in Britain amid police investigations into them, while their son Li Shengwu, an economist, is an associate professor at Harvard.
Mah Hwee Leng, who works in customer service, never met Lee Wei Ling but chose to pay her respects as a fan of her newspaper columns.
“I have great respect for her. She’s a fighter. Her writing was straightforward and told stories of normal people’s lives,” said Mah, 67.

Opposition politician and infectious diseases expert Paul Tambyah also arrived at the wake on Thursday afternoon. He told This Week in Asia that he and Lee Wei Ling, a neurologist, had worked together.
“She was very, very good with her patients. She used to write very detailed reports and was very concerned about them,” he said. “She was of course not the easiest person to work with. She was very independent-minded and had very strong ideas.”
In 2017, Lee Wei Ling and Lee Hsien Yang made public the conflict with their older brother, who was then prime minister, alleging he was misusing his power to scuttle their efforts to demolish the family bungalow, according to their father’s wishes.
Lee Hsien Loong has denied his younger siblings’ claim that he hoped to keep the bungalow intact for political capital in light of the reverence with which most Singaporeans still view Lee Kuan Yew.
The house is currently owned by Lee Hsien Yang. Lee Hsien Loong earlier said his father bequeathed the property to him, but he then sold it to his brother at a fair market valuation. The proceeds were donated to charity.
A ministerial committee set up in April 2018 to decide the fate of the house, which Lee Wei Ling was still living in at the time, provided three options for a future government: gazette the property as a national monument, retain the basement dining room and tear down the rest, or demolish the entire building.












View this post on Instagram























A post shared by Lee Hsien Loong (@leehsienloong)



In an emotional message on social media on Wednesday, Lee Hsien Loong acknowledged the rift that had developed between the siblings. He recalled Lee Kuan Yew telling him when he was 13 to take care of his mother and younger siblings if anything were to happen to the senior Lee.
“Sadly, after he passed away in 2015, a shadow fell between my siblings and me, and I was unable to fulfil his wish. But I held nothing against Ling, and continued to do whatever I could to ensure her welfare,” he said.
Lee Hsien Yang earlier told local media that he would not be returning to Singapore for his sister’s wake and funeral and was organising it remotely.
He and his wife, lawyer Lee Suet Fern, left Singapore amid police investigations for giving false evidence in judicial proceedings over Lee Kuan Yew’s will, police said in March last year.
Lee Wei Ling’s wake is being held at Singapore Casket at Lavender Street from Thursday to Saturday. Visiting hours are from 2pm to 10pm on Thursday, 10am to 10pm on Friday and 10am to 1pm on Saturday.


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Singapore

Singapore ex-PM Lee Hsien Loong attends wake of sister Lee Wei Ling

Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong and his wife Ho Ching arrive at Singapore Casket at Lavender Street on Thursday, for the wake of his sister Lee Wei Ling. Photo: Jean Iau

The wake for Lee Wei Ling at Singapore Casket at Lavender Street on Thursday. Photo: Jean Iau

Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter Lee Wei Ling dies at 69 in Singapore

Lee Wei Ling in her younger years, in a picture shared by her brother Lee Hsien Yang announcing her death. Photo: Facebook/LeeHsienYang

Lee Wei Ling (second from right) pictured with her father, Singapore’s first Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, in a photo her brother Lee Hsien Loong shared on Instagram. Photo: Instagram/LeeHsienLoong

A collage of photographs featuring his late sister Lee Wei Ling that Singapore’s former prime minister Lee Hsien Loong shared on Instagram. Photo: Instagram/LeeHsienLoong

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Singapore’s Foreign Minister Vivian Balakrishnan (left) and Law Minister K. Shanmugam are seen in this composite picture. Photo: dpa, SCMP

Lee Hsien Yang, younger brother of Singapore’s former PM Lee Hsien Loong, leaves the Supreme Court at a hearing in 2017. Photo: AFP

A view of 38 Oxley Road, the residence of Singapore’s first prime minister the late Lee Kuan Yew. Photo: EPA

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Lee Hsien Yang, younger brother of Singapore’s Lee Hsien Loong, leaves court in 2017. Photo: AFP

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Lee Hsien Yang intends to remain in self-exile in an unnamed European country. Photo: Reuters

Lee Hsien Yang said on social media and in multiple interviews with international media that the police probe amounted to a fresh round of political persecution against him by his brother Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (pictured) government. Photo: Bloomberg

The dispute among the siblings centres around the future of the 19th-century bungalow that their father Lee Kuan Yew called home from the 1940s until his death at age 91 in 2015. Photo: EPA

Singapore ex-PM Lee Hsien Loong attends wake of sister Lee Wei Ling

The move comes amid the resurfacing of the 38 Oxley Road family feud