Derek Achong

Busi­ness­man In­shan Ish­mael has threat­ened to sue three so­cial me­dia users in­clud­ing a po­lice of­fi­cer for re­post­ing four-time Ca­lyp­so Monarch We­st­on “Cro Cro” Rawl­ins’ con­tro­ver­sial song al­leged­ly di­rect­ed at him (Ish­mael). 

On March 18, High Court Judge Frank Seep­er­sad grant­ed an in­junc­tion bar­ring Rawl­ins from per­form­ing por­tions of his song “An­oth­er Sat is Out­side Again”, which Ish­mael con­tends are of­fen­sive and defam­a­to­ry.

Ish­mael’s lawyer Richard Ja­gas­sar on Mon­day served three pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters on Chad Ris­brooke, of Gat­acre Street in Wood­brook, po­lice con­sta­ble Fin­bar Rochford, of Cara­po, and Qbannz Rich, a pop­u­lar so­cial me­dia user from Point Lisas. 

Qbannz Rich’s let­ter was ad­dressed to his wife Shan­ni­ah Charles-Richards as Jag­gasar claimed that he reg­u­lar­ly changes his so­cial me­dia user names. 

In the let­ters, which all con­tain sim­i­lar terms, Jag­gasar claimed that the trio sep­a­rate­ly de­famed his client by shar­ing an unedit­ed video record­ing of Rawl­ins per­form­ing the song af­ter the in­junc­tion was grant­ed. 

He con­tend­ed that Ris­brooke on­ly re­post­ed the video but Rochford and Qbannz Rich went fur­ther as they al­leged­ly crit­i­cised the in­junc­tion and Ish­mael for seek­ing it. 

He claimed that they should have been aware of the in­junc­tion and still al­leged­ly de­fied it. 

“Yet the In­tend­ed De­fen­dant know­ing­ly, ma­li­cious­ly, and in a self-harm­ing ef­fort re­pub­lished the defam­a­to­ry state­ments on a pub­lic medi­um with the in­ten­tion of de­fam­ing the In­tend­ed Claimant and de­fy­ing the Learned Judge,” Jag­gasar said. 

“It shall be con­tend­ed that such an act was an act in de­fi­ance of the rule of law, the ex­is­tence of in­junc­tion, and pure­ly ma­li­cious,” he added. 

Through the pro­posed law­suits, Ish­mael is seek­ing apolo­gies from the trio and in­junc­tions bar­ring them from con­tin­u­ing to re­dis­trib­ute the video. He is al­so seek­ing com­pen­sa­tion for al­leged dam­age to his rep­u­ta­tion. 

The trio was giv­en 14 days in which to re­spond to the le­gal threat be­fore Ish­mael files the cas­es. 

In his court fil­ings in the orig­i­nal case against Rawl­ins, Jag­gasar claimed that on Feb­ru­ary 5, Rawl­ins, with the per­mis­sion of the Copy­right Or­gan­i­sa­tion of T&T (COTT), per­formed a ca­lyp­so that al­leged­ly named his client. 

Rawl­ins al­leged­ly penned the song fol­low­ing so­cial me­dia furore to­wards Ish­mael based on his com­ments on the cel­e­bra­tions host­ed by res­i­dents of Beetham Gar­dens af­ter his (Rawl­ins) lawyer Ka­reem Mar­celle was called to the bar in No­vem­ber, last year. 

“The lyrics of the song di­rect­ly name, iden­ti­fy, and at­tack the claimant; and en­cour­ages oth­ers to at­tack the claimant ver­bal­ly and phys­i­cal­ly and to fi­nan­cial­ly ab­stain from his busi­ness­es,” Jag­gasar said. 

“As a re­sult of the lyrics of the song the claimant is now viewed as a crim­i­nal, a racist, and a thief,” he added. 

Al­though Rawl­ins did not qual­i­fy for the semi­fi­nals of this year’s Ca­lyp­so Monarch com­pe­ti­tion, which took place at Ca­lyp­so Fi­es­ta in Skin­ner Park, in San Fer­nan­do, on Feb­ru­ary 11, Jag­gasar claimed that the video of the per­for­mance was wide­ly shared. 

Through the law­suit, Ish­mael is claim­ing gen­er­al and ag­gra­vat­ed dam­ages for the al­leged dam­age to his char­ac­ter. 

In grant­i­ng the in­junc­tion last month, Jus­tice Seep­er­sad not­ed that while the ca­lyp­so art form has been a cat­a­lyst of aware­ness and change in T&T, it should not be used to en­gage in ill-in­formed and base­less at­tacks on an in­di­vid­ual’s char­ac­ter or in­tegri­ty. 

While Rawl­ins was not barred from per­form­ing the song at the show, he was pre­vent­ed from singing the por­tions which Ish­mael claimed de­famed him. 

Ish­mael is al­so be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Nigel Tran­coso.