Sascha Wil­son

Op­po­si­tion Leader Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar has won her li­bel suit against the Sun­shine News­pa­per, owned by her for­mer Cab­i­net col­league Jack Warn­er.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar sued the news­pa­per, of­fi­cial­ly known as the Sun­shine Pub­lish­ing Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed, for an ar­ti­cle it car­ried on De­cem­ber 4, 2015, ti­tled "Kam­la fac­ing ex­tra­di­tion to the US! - For US $20 Mil­lion in Japan­ese Bank".

 Per­sad-Bisses­sar con­tend­ed that the ar­ti­cle was base­less and in­cor­rect. The mat­ter was fixed for tri­al to­day be­fore Jus­tice David Har­ris in the San Fer­nan­do Supreme Court. Nei­ther Warn­er or his at­tor­neys were present in court. The court was giv­en no ex­pla­na­tion for their ab­sence.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar was the on­ly wit­ness called in the mat­ter. For­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan S.C, who led her team of at­tor­neys, gave sub­mis­sions to Har­ris with re­gards to the case, in­clud­ing claims for ag­gra­vat­ed and ex­em­plary dam­ages.

The news­pa­per did not file a de­fence and af­fi­davits pre­vi­ous­ly. Har­ris ruled that the news­pa­per ar­ti­cle con­tained li­bel and or­dered it to pay dam­ages to Per­sad-Bisses­sar. This in­cludes ag­gra­vat­ed and ex­em­plary dam­ages. Har­ris al­so grant­ed an in­junc­tion, pre­vent­ing the news­pa­per from futher pub­lish­ing the ar­ti­cle or any sim­i­lar al­le­ga­tions. The news­pa­per al­so has to pay costs.

The dam­ages are to as­sessed by a Mas­ter of the Court at a date to be set.