Kali­fa Clyne

Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) San Fer­nan­do West can­di­date Faris Al-Rawi and St Ann's North can­di­date Stu­art Young, have warned that le­gal ac­tion will be tak­en against any­one who de­fames po­lit­i­cal leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley or any PNM mem­ber.

The duo, who are al­so Row­ley's lawyers, made the state­ment dur­ing a press con­fer­ence yes­ter­day as they an­nounced that Row­ley would ini­ti­ate le­gal ac­tion against the News­day news­pa­per and for­mer Le­gal Af­fairs Min­is­ter un­der the PNM, Pe­ter Tay­lor, fol­low­ing an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the news­pa­per last week.

The press con­fer­ence took place at Bal­isi­er House in Port-of-Spain.

The news­pa­per ar­ti­cle to which Al-Rawi re­ferred al­leged, through a let­ter writ­ten by Tay­lor, that Row­ley had used the state's in­tel­li­gence re­sources to spy on Tay­lor.

It re­sult­ed in a sub­se­quent ar­ti­cle, in which Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal called on Row­ley to take le­gal ac­tion against Tay­lor or re­sign.

Row­ley's lawyers con­firmed that pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters were be­ing draft­ed and would be is­sued af­ter the elec­tion.

"It is not of­ten that at­tor­neys come to a mi­cro­phone to ad­dress a let­ter such as this but it is in­cum­bent, with five days be­fore elec­tion for us to set the record straight.

"This let­ter, to put it at its most po­lite, is in­cred­i­ble, un­be­liev­able," Al-Rawi said.

"Why some­one would be com­pelled to put to the pub­lic do­main, that a leader of the Op­po­si­tion has con­trol of the Na­tion­al Op­er­a­tions Cen­tre and Spe­cial Branch to in­ter­fere in the re­la­tion­ship be­tween Mr Tay­lor and his girl­friend is just in­cred­i­ble."

Al-Rawi said it was the po­si­tion of the PNM that Dr Row­ley's tele­phone records demon­strat­ed that not a sin­gle phone call was made to him by the News­day seek­ing com­ment on Tay­lor's claims.

"We con­demn this type of pub­li­ca­tion par­tic­u­lar­ly when this type of let­ter leads one down to an in­ex­orable con­clu­sion that it could not have been writ­ten by any­one with se­ri­ous in­ten­tion to tell a truth­ful sto­ry.

"Al­le­ga­tions are com­plete­ly de­nied. We wish to state that the rea­son we have not yet is­sued the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col, which will not be on­ly to Tay­lor but specif­i­cal­ly to the News­day, is that this type of let­ter is of­ten best left to be done in the lux­u­ry of time and with five days be­fore elec­tions, one does not en­gage pre­cious time to deal with mat­ters like this," Al-Rawi said.

"The let­ter is be­ing craft­ed as we speak and will go out in due course."

"Pre-ac­tion pro­to­cols de­mand that we ex­er­cise cau­tion and ad­dress the mat­ter with alacrity but we must do so while be­ing thor­ough," said Al-Rawi.

Al-Rawi al­so ques­tioned why Mooni­lal was keen to com­ment on the is­sue.

"If Mooni­lal has the proof. as he says he does. He must take it to the po­lice. Char­ac­ter as­sas­si­na­tion will not be tol­er­at­ed.

"We will pur­sue with vigour. We will not be dis­tract­ed or lose sight. We have been in­formed there are fur­ther at­tacks to come," Al-Rawi said.

"It is our view that this is a con­tin­u­a­tion of the No Row­ley cam­paign.

"It is a wicked and mis­chie­vous pub­li­ca­tion and one that a se­ri­ous ed­i­tor should have looked at twice. We cer­tain­ly think it is well with­in the pub­lic's do­main to know Row­ley is reach­able at all times.

"I am al­ways avail­able as PRO and his lawyer."

Young said the ar­ti­cle must have failed the Reynold's test for prop­er jour­nal­ism.

The Reynold's test pro­vides a check­list for re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism.

He said there was no doubt in his mind that the state­ments were defam­a­to­ry.

"We will pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against any­body who de­fames the po­lit­i­cal leader and any mem­ber of the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress," Young said.