By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-03-24 10:29:45 | Updated at 2025-03-26 07:13:32
1 day ago
A senior lawyer in Singapore has come under fire for his online comments that appeared to victim-shame a woman in a rape case, sparking calls for his resignation from the council of a law body and a rebuke from Minister of Law and Home Affairs K Shanmugam.
Chia Boon Teck, vice-president of the city state’s Law Society and the co-managing director of law firm Chia Wong Chambers, raised eyebrows with a LinkedIn post on a case involving a former actor convicted of raping a woman he met on the dating app Tinder.
Lev Panfilov, a Singapore permanent resident from Russia and a former actor for an online comedy channel, was convicted last week by the High Court for raping, molesting and sexually assaulting a woman he had met online in 2021. He will be sentenced at a later date.
If convicted of rape, Panfilov can be sentenced to a maximum of 20 years in jail and fined or caned.
In the since-deleted entry, Chia raised what he felt were questionable points in a local media report on the case, noting the victim’s age and occupation as an actress and model, and stating that she was “not exactly a babe in the woods”.
He also pointed to the charges of two counts of rape and one each of sexual assault by penetration and outrage of modesty, saying: “Wow. Was she awake throughout the marathon?”
