For­mer In­de­pen­dent Lib­er­al Par­ty (ILP) leader Jack Warn­er has been or­dered to pay Deputy Ch­agua­nas May­or Faaiq Mo­hammed an ad­di­tion­al $430,000 in com­pen­sa­tion for defama­tion.

In 2014, Mo­hammed was award­ed $200,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages and $20,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages over Warn­er’s claim that he ac­cept­ed a $2.5 mil­lion bribe from the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) to vote for its can­di­date in the elec­tion of the pre­sid­ing of­fi­cer in the Ch­agua­nas Bor­ough Cor­po­ra­tion.

In a 73-page judge­ment de­liv­ered on Wednes­day, Ap­pel­late Judges Pe­ter Ja­madar, Gre­go­ry Smith and Prakash Moo­sai ruled that the dam­ages ini­tial­ly award­ed by High Court Judge Vasheist Kokaram were in­or­di­nate­ly low based on the cir­cum­stances of the case.

The judges or­dered Warn­er to pay Mo­hammed $500,000 in gen­er­al dam­ages for the em­bar­rass­ment he suf­fered due to Warn­er’s claims and $150,000 in ex­em­plary dam­ages to serve as a de­ter­rent against sim­i­lar con­duct in the fu­ture.

Warn­er will on­ly have to pay a por­tion of the new com­pen­sa­tion as he had paid Mo­hammed the com­pen­sa­tion or­dered by Kokaram, while the ap­peal was still pend­ing. The dam­ages are ex­pect­ed to slight­ly in­crease as Warn­er was or­dered to pay in­ter­est on them.

Mo­hammed was present in court for the hear­ing but Warn­er was ab­sent as he had a med­ical ap­point­ment.

Mo­hammed was elect­ed as coun­cil­lor for Char­lieville on an ILP tick­et in 2013. Dur­ing elec­tions for of Ch­agua­nas May­or and Deputy May­or on No­vem­ber 6, 2013, Mo­hammed chose to vote for UNC can­di­date Van­dana Mo­hit over the ILP’s can­di­date Fal­isha Isa­hak.

Mo­hammed claimed that his un­ex­pect­ed move was based on al­leged com­plaints from his con­stituents over Isa­hak’s con­duct when she held the post of coun­cil­lor one be­half of the UNC.

Al­most im­me­di­ate­ly af­ter the con­tro­ver­sial meet­ing, Warn­er oust­ed Mo­hammed from the par­ty and ac­cused him of tak­ing the bribe.

In as­sess­ing Mo­hammed’s defama­tion claim, Kokaram had ruled that Warn­er’s al­le­ga­tions were “out-of-place, ir­re­spon­si­ble and un­sub­stan­ti­at­ed.”

One year af­ter scor­ing the le­gal vic­to­ry, Mo­hammed was forced to sue Warn­er a sec­ond time as he did not im­me­di­ate­ly pay the com­pen­sa­tion.

How­ev­er, Warn­er even­tu­al­ly paid the mon­ey and avoid­ed bailiffs mov­ing against him.

Mo­hammed was rep­re­sent­ed by Anand Ram­lo­gan, SC, Alvin Pariags­ingh and Ganesh Sa­roop, while Kei­th Scot­land, Asha Watkins-Montserin and Jacque­line Chang.