JUDGMENT

LP Thean J:

In this action the plaintiff claims against the defendants damages for libel in respect of statements contained in an article, headed "New light on detentions", published in the issue of the Far Eastern Economic Review ("the Review") for 17 December 1987. The plaintiff is the Prime Minister of Singapore, and the 1st defendant is the editor of the Review; the 2nd defendant is the author of the article complained of, and the 3rd and 4th defendants are publishers and printers respectively of the Review. The 1st, 2nd and 3rd defendants are not resident in Singapore.

Facts

Before I turn to the article complained of, it is necessary to set out in some detail the relevant events that occurred prior to the publication of the article; some of these occurred long before the publication. For my purpose, I take as a starting point the meeting that took place on 9 July 1986 between a team of officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs, headed by B.G. Tan Chin Tiong, the Permanent Secretary ("the Permanent Secretary") and Archbishop Gregory Yong, the Archbishop of Singapore ("the Archbishop"). At that meeting, the Permanent Secretary conveyed to the Archbishop the Government's