The Real Singapore trial: Ai Takagi's husband Yang Kaiheng 'made profits from website'

The prosecution witness says Yang told him he earned about $4,000 to $5,000 a month from advertising revenue through TRS.

A key prosecution witness told the court The Real Singapore (TRS) co-founder Yang Kaiheng had significant role in the operational matters of the now defunct website and made profits from the venture.

Yang earlier said he had only minimal role at the publication, which he co-founded with this wife Ai Takagi.

Yang's trial is going on for a week now after his wife Ai Takagi, the former editor of The Real Singapore (TRS), was handed a 10-month jail term a fortnight ago for publishing seditious articles on the website.

K Sudesh Durai, a former business associate of Yang, said Yang and Takagi "started and continue to run an online media news site at www.therealsingapore.com from which advertising revenue is gained," the Straits Times reported.

A series of revelations made by Durai hinged around the theme of Yang making profits from the website venture.

The prosecution said the couple published seditious content with the motive of attracting higher readership numbers for her website and thus profit from it.

Yang, who faces seven counts of sedition, denied all charges and requested for a trial.

TRS published "patently false information represented as being the truth" the prosecutors said in court last week. The website "even resorted to outright and blatant fabrication in order to attract internet users to their website - all with the objective of increasing their advertising revenue" the prosecution said.

The court was told owners of the site earned A$473,000 in advertising revenue over a year and a half adding that the website got more than 134 million page views between May 2014 to March last year.

On Tuesday the prosecution witness told the court Yang told him he earned about $4,000 to $5,000 a month from advertising revenue through TRS.

Yang had also claimed that TRS was the most successful" business he has started to date, and "one of the top 100 sites, traffic-wise in Singapore", the daily cited Durai as saying.

Earlier, Yang defended himself saying he was involved with the publication only for a month in 2012.

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