Oral Reply to Parliamentary Question on Whether Receiving Countries are Consulted Before Foreigners Convicted of Offences in Singapore are Deported There

Question:

Ms Sylvia Lim: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs (a) whether the Government has a standard protocol of consulting the authorities of the intended receiving countries before proceeding with the deportations of foreigners convicted of offences in Singapore; and (b) in the case of a money laundering convict who was deported from Singapore to Cambodia in June 2024 and subsequently expelled by Cambodia after one month, what consultations did the Government undertake with the Cambodian authorities before deporting him there.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1. As regards to whether the Government has a standard protocol of consulting the authorities of the intended receiving countries before proceeding with the deportations of foreigners, the short answer is that there is no such standard protocol. As stated in my Ministry’s reply on 2 July 2024, foreigners who are being deported can leave for any country to which their passports allow them to go to. The foreign country can, as a sovereign state, choose to allow entry, or it can choose to disallow entry when the person arrives on its shores, or it can take subsequent actions to expel the person after entry. The way we treat these persons is no different from any other traveller. We do not consult foreign countries beforehand, as a general rule, as to whether a traveller is allowed to go there.

2. As regards to Ms Lim’s second specific question, the general position is that we do not disclose specific discussions. Discussions may sometimes take place for operational security reasons, for intelligence reasons, other similar purposes. But since this particular question seems to interest the Member of Parliament, because she asked last month and followed up with several supplementary questions; and now again. I will say no, we did not discuss with the Cambodians or the Cambodian authorities. But, having made that position – for future, let me make it clear to Members of Parliament – the general position that my Ministry takes about discussions with foreign governments on deportations is that we should not be disclosing this. It is not in the public interest to disclose it, because there are variety of reasons why we may be in touch with foreign governments, and likewise, we may want people to be deported from foreign governments as long as the law allows it, and we sometimes will not want that publicly disclosed upfront. Otherwise, others who are collaborating with such persons of interest may then get wind. So, these are sometimes matters of operational security. But here, in answer to the question – no, we did not discuss with the Cambodians.