LEE Hsien Yang, the younger brother of Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, and his wife, Lee Suet Fern, are preparing to leave Singapore, Straits Times reported today.

Suet Fern, who received a visit from the news portal at home today, said she and her husband were in the “process of preparing to leave”.

Meanwhile, Hsien Yang, who is the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore chairman, was at work, said the wife. She was also just about to leave for work herself, said Suet Fern, a well known corporate lawyer and partner at Morgan Lewis Stamford.

Suet Fern declined to say when they would leave or where they were headed to.

The couple are in the middle of an acrimonious family feud with Hsien Loong, who was today accused by Hsien Yang and their sister, Dr Lee Wei Ling of abusing his position to drive his personal agenda.

While the prime minister is away on vacation, the younger siblings took to Facebook to voice their accusations.  

Hsien Yang has declared that he felt “compelled to flee” his home country, which was “heart-wrenching” for him to do because he feared his brother was watching his every move and would use state machinery against him and his wife.

In a six-page statement that he issued jointly with his sister, Hsien Yang had said that he felt compelled to leave Singapore “for the foreseeable future”.

The two siblings added that they had lost confidence in Hsien Loong, whom they accused of making changes in Singapore since the death of their father, Lee Kuan Yew, that did not reflect what Kuan Yew stood for.

Shortly after their statement was published on Facebook at 2am, Hsien Yang’s eldest son, Dr Li Shengwu, chimed in with his support, also on Facebook.

Shengwu, currently a junior fellow at the Harvard Society of Fellows, said in an accompanying note:

“I generally avoid commenting on Singapore politics, but this is an exception. In the last few years, my immediate family has become increasingly worried about the lack of checks on abuse of power. The situation is now such that my parents have made plans to relocate to another country, a painful decision that they have not made lightly.”

The prime minister, meanwhile, has said he is disappointed that his siblings have chosen to publicise private family matters and that he is “deeply saddened by the unfortunate allegations that they have made”. – June 14, 2017.