Indian doc gets huge divorce bill as he accuses judge of spreading her legs

Agencies
May 8, 2019

Singapore, May 8: The ex-wife of an Indian-origin neurologist in Singapore has been granted Singapore dollars 25 million  in assets, child support and spousal support by a British Columbia court, in one of the biggest divorce payouts abroad.

Gobinathan Devathasan, 69, whose behaviour was described as "reprehensible" during the litigation, was ordered on April 29 to pay his ex-wife Christie Devathasan Canadian dollars 5,498,344 in spousal support, with another Canadian dollars 612,084 for child support.

During the course of the litigation, Mr Devathasan had handled funds in his Singapore bank account despite an asset freezing order, failed to disclose properties, deliberately embarrassed his daughter and suggested that a judge had "spread her legs wide" to the claimant's counsel, the court was told.

The doctor ran a private clinic at Mount Elizabeth Hospital, and had married Christie in 1997. She filed for divorce in 2016, Channel News Asia reported.

The couple was described in the court judgment as being "uncommonly wealthy", and had owned expensive cars, jewellery, artwork and homes, with investment properties in Canada, the US, Singapore, Thailand and Malaysia.

Christie divorced her first husband in 1996, while Mr Devathasan divorced his first wife, with whom he had two children with, in 1997. Shortly after, the couple got married in Singapore in August 1997.

The couple's relationship deteriorated in 2015 and early 2016, according to the court papers.

The divorce proceedings commenced in July 2016.

Christie obtained an asset freezing order and a protection order, and these orders were served to Mr Devathasan in August 2016. The doctor claimed that they were not binding as he was in Singapore and took steps to deal with his assets.

Mr Devathasan's past conduct was also taken into account in deciding ongoing and future child support. He has to pay Canadian dollars 33,084 for past child support and a lump sum of Canadian dollars 579,000 for child support for the period through to June 2022.

"For a long time he was utterly unwilling to acknowledge or fulfill his parental and spousal responsibilities or acknowledge this court''s role in adjudicating those responsibilities," Justice Gomery said in his judgment.

In an affidavit sworn on May 22, 2017, he stated: "I will not pay a dollar for alimony now or till death or whatever any one decrees, no matter what".

The judge ordered Mr Devathasan to pay his ex-wife Canadian dollars 2,351,000 in connection with the allocation of family property and debt. He will also have to pay a total of Canadian dollars 612,084 in child support, and Canadian dollars 5,498,344 in total for spousal support.

The Canadian dollars 16.4 million in assets granted to Christie Devasthan include a house in West Vancouver worth Canadian dollars 6.2 million, an apartment in Vancouver worth Canadian dollars 2.35 million and an apartment in Florida worth Canadian dollars 2.48 million.

The doctor was granted Canadian dollars 21.4 million after the proceedings.

The judge described Mr Devathasan as a "hardworking man all his life", adding that the doctor worked Monday to Friday and Saturday mornings throughout his career in private practices.

"He has loyal patients," the judge was quoted as saying in the report.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israel has launched a new act of aggression on a residential neighborhood in Lebanon's capital, Beirut, killing and injuring about two dozen civilians.

The Israeli regime's military said in a statement that its forces carried out a so-called precise strike in a residential apartment in Dahiyeh in the southern suburbs of Beirut on Sunday.

The aggression targeted residential areas, killing at least five people and injuring more than 28 people, Lebanon's Health Ministry said. 

Hezbollah announced the martyrdom of senior Hezbollah commander Haytham Ali Tabatabai and four resistance fighters.

Lebanese President Michel Aoun condemned the airstrike, calling it a clear demonstration of Tel Aviv’s disregard for repeated international calls to halt violations on Lebanese soil.

“Israel refuses to implement international resolutions and all efforts aimed at ending the escalation and restoring stability,” Aoun said, urging the international community to take action to prevent further aggression.

The Palestinian Islamic Jihad movement also condemned the attack, holding the international community accountable. 

“The international community bears responsibility and continues to provide cover for these attacks as long as it does not restrain the occupiers,” said Ali Abu Shahin, a member of the group’s political bureau.

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office announced that the Israeli army carried out a strike “in the heart of Beirut."

Netanyahu reportedly approved the operation following recommendations from top Israeli security officials.

Two senior US officials commented on the Israeli strike.

The first official said that Israel did not notify Americans in advance about the attack. "We were informed immediately after the strike was carried out."

The second senior official said that the "US knew for several days that Israel was planning to escalate its strikes in Lebanon, but did not know in advance the timing, location, or target of the strike."

Speaking from the site of the Israeli strike, Lebanese MP Ali Ammar condemned the attack as part of a broader campaign of aggression that has targeted "all of Lebanon since the Washington-sponsored ceasefire."

He stated that "any attack on Lebanon is a violation of red lines; this aggression is part and parcel of the entity that targets Lebanon's dignity, sovereignty, and security of citizens."

Ammar went on to say the resistance is responding with "utmost wisdom, patience, and will confront the enemy at the appropriate time."

"Unfortunately, the enemy is emboldened to commit its aggression by voices within Lebanon that have turned themselves into tools that support its aggression," he added.

The Israeli attack on the southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital is the latest blatant violation of the ceasefire Israel signed with Hezbollah in November 2024, which was intended to end hostilities that had escalated into full-scale war.

An Israeli strike on the Ain al-Hilweh camp near Sidon in southern Lebanon late Tuesday killed at least 14 people. It wounded several others, including young students, according to the Lebanese health ministry.

The military claimed the attack targeted “a Hamas training compound” used to plan and carry out attacks against the regime -- a claim that has frequently been made without evidence.

Hamas rejected the allegations as “a blatant lie aimed at justifying the massacre,” stating it had “no military installations in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon” and that the targeted site was merely “an open sports field.”

According to Lebanese authorities, Israeli attacks have killed approximately 4,000 people and displaced more than 1.2 million residents across the country since October 2023.

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News Network
November 30,2025

The United Nations Committee against Torture (CAT) has condemned the Israeli regime for enforcing a policy of “organized torture” against Palestinians.

In a report published on Friday, CAT stated that the occupying regime enforces a deliberate policy of “organized and widespread torture and ill-treatment” against Palestinian abductees, particularly since October 7, 2023, when Israel launched its genocidal war on Gaza.

The committee expressed “deep concern over repeated severe beatings, dog attacks, electrocution, water-boarding, use of prolonged stress positions [and] sexual violence” inflicted on Palestinians.

Palestinian prisoners were degraded by “being made to act like animals or being urinated on,” systematically denied medical care, and subjected to excessive restraints, “in some cases resulting in amputation,” the report added.

CAT also condemned the routine application of “unlawful combatants law” to justify the prolonged detention without trial of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children.

More than 10,000 Palestinians, including women and children, are currently held in Israeli prisons, according to Palestinian and international human rights groups, with 3,474 Palestinians in “administrative detention,” meaning they are imprisoned without trial for indefinite periods.

The report highlighted the “high proportion of children who are currently detained without charge or on remand,” noting that while Israel sets the age of criminal responsibility at 12, even younger children have been abducted.

Children designated as security prisoners face severe restrictions on family contact, may be subjected to solitary confinement, and are denied access to education, in clear violation of international law.

The committee further suggested that Israel’s policies across the Occupied Territories constitute collective torture against the Palestinian population.

“A range of policies adopted by Israel in the course of its continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory amounts to cruel, inhuman or degrading living conditions for the Palestinian population,” the report said.

On Thursday, the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas condemned the systematic killing and torture of Palestinian abductees in Israeli prisons, urging international action to halt these abuses.

Citing human rights data, Hamas stated that 94 Palestinians have been killed in Israeli prisons since the start of Tel Aviv’s genocidal war on Gaza.

“This reflects an organized criminal approach that has turned these prisons into direct killing grounds to eliminate our people,” the resistance movement said.

Hamas called on the international community, the UN, and human rights organizations to immediately pressure Israel to end crimes against prisoners and uphold their rights as guaranteed by all international conventions and norms.

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News Network
November 24,2025

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Israeli forces have pushed over the Syrian frontier, erecting a checkpoint and stopping vehicles in the southwestern city of Quneitra, in yet another breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

The violation took place on Sunday, when the troops made their way across the border, setting up the outpost near the Ain al-Bayda junction in northern Quneitra, Syrian outlets reported.

According to the al-Ikhbariya paper, an Israeli detachment positioned itself at the junction, halting cars and conducting searches.

The Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported that three Israeli military vehicles then moved further into the northern countryside, deploying between the town of Jubata al-Khashab and the villages of Ofaniya and Ain al-Bayda. The agency added that a separate Israeli unit mounted a new incursion in the central region, approaching the villages of Umm Batina and al-Ajraf.

Residents said such activities have surged in recent months, pointing to Israeli advances onto farmland, leveling of extensive forested areas, arrests, and spread of mobile checkpoints.

The Israeli regime began markedly increasing its military aggression against Syria last year.

The escalation coincided with increasingly ferocious onslaughts throughout the country by the so-called Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Takfiri terrorist group, which the government of President Bashar al-Assad had confined to northwestern Syria. The HTS, however, managed to overthrow the government as the Israeli attacks would pummel the country’s civilian and defensive infrastructure.

Various reports have shown that, during the escalation, the regime conducted more than 1,000 airstrikes on the Syrian territory and over 400 ground raids into the south.

Following the collapse of the Assad government, Tel Aviv also widened its grip over the occupied Golan Heights by taking control of a demilitarized buffer zone, in defiance of a 1974 Disengagement Agreement. Earlier this month, senior Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visited the buffer zone, prompting expressions of alarm on the part of the United Nations.

The United States, the regime’s biggest ally, has, meanwhile, been fraternizing the HTS head Abu Mohammed al-Jolani amid the widely reported prospect of rapprochement with Tel Aviv.

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