Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley has de­mand­ed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar im­me­di­ate­ly re­move from her Face­book page state­ments he de­scribes as li­bel­lous. He wants the Prime Min­is­ter to re­move the posts made on May 11 and 12 and apol­o­gise, or face le­gal ac­tion.

The Prime Min­is­ter has un­til 4 pm next Mon­day to re­spond.

Row­ley yes­ter­day re­leased a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter through Al-Rawi and Com­pa­ny – head­ed by PNM Sen­a­tor Faris Al-Rawi – to this ef­fect. Al-Rawi had been re­moved from Row­ley's le­gal team in the case against for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan ear­li­er in the year, but is act­ing on this mat­ter.

The let­ter not­ed the al­leged emails which Row­ley pre­sent­ed to the Par­lia­ment in May 2013. It point­ed out what Row­ley had said to the Par­lia­ment when he pre­sent­ed the emails and that he al­so called on the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to ex­am­ine the is­sue and the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion to in­ves­ti­gate it.

The let­ter stat­ed that Gov­ern­ment filed a mo­tion of sus­pen­sion against Row­ley, al­though nowhere in the mo­tion or oth­er mat­ters on the is­sue was it al­leged that Row­ley was per­son­al­ly re­spon­si­ble for fab­ri­cat­ing the emails.

With that in mind, the let­ter drew at­ten­tion to a post on the PM's Face­book page of May 11 con­cern­ing the emails.

The let­ter claimed that the post was au­thored and/or caused to be au­thored and/or au­tho­rised and/or pub­lished by Per­sad-Bisses­sar. It al­so not­ed an­oth­er sim­i­lar Face­book post on May 12.

Row­ley's at­tor­ney stat­ed that Row­ley had been very care­ful in his pre­sen­ta­tion to Par­lia­ment, and sub­se­quent pre­sen­ta­tions and in­ter­views, to set out how he came to be in pos­ses­sion of the emails. See pages A4 and A5

In light of the sit­u­a­tion, the let­ter de­mand­ed that the PM im­me­di­ate­ly re­move the of­fend­ing words from her Face­book page, apol­o­gise im­me­di­ate­ly on the page – in terms to be ap­proved by Row­ley's at­tor­neys – and give an un­der­tak­ing not to re­peat the of­fend­ing words or sim­i­lar words. Al­so de­mand­ed by Row­ley's at­tor­neys is a pro­pos­al with re­spect to the pay­ment of a sub­stan­tial sum in dam­ages to com­pen­sate him for in­jury to his rep­u­ta­tion.