A businessman from central Trinidad has threatened to sue Opposition leader Kamla Persad-Bissessar for defamation.
Kida Hercules made the threat over allegations made against him during the United National Congress virtual Monday Night Forum last week, in a pre-action protocol letter sent by his attorney Taradath Smith to Persad-Bissessar last Thursday.
In the correspondence, obtained by Guardian Media, Singh sought to summarise the alleged defamatory comments made by Persad-Bissessar, which cannot be repeated considering the pending legal action.
Singh claimed that Persad-Bissessar sought to link Hercules to alleged criminal conduct and to embattled Youth Development and National Service Minister Foster Cummings.
“For the avoidance of doubt, we note that your seriously injurious statements and/or publication and/or communication, purports to have been partially contained in a confidential intelligence report intended for internal police and other military and/or paramilitary purposes,” Singh said.
Stating that the statements were deliberate, malicious and made without an investigation into the merits of the report, Singh said his client “emphatically denied” any criminal conduct alleged.
Singh also claimed that his client denied any association with Cummings, who also serves as La Horquetta/Talparo MP.
“By your statements and/or publication, you have deliberately, maliciously, purposefully, wrongfully, and/or unlawfully discredited our client’s honest, hard-working disposition/reputation and branded our client as a person of ill-repute, high criminality and to be scorned,” Singh said.
He noted that the allegations did not only affect his client, who serves as a supervisor at GNU Dimension Construction Company Limited and owns Kida Quality and Quantity Construction Services, but also his family, including his children, aged nine and four.
“The elder child has also been traumatised by your damaging and/or defamatory statements and/or publication and/or communication,” Singh said.
Singh called on Persad-Bissessar to refrain from repeating the allegations and to offer a written apology. He also gave Persad-Bissessar the option to settle the case for $250,000 but set a deadline of less than a day to do so.
Guardian Media understands that Persad-Bissessar did not respond by the set deadline.
Last week, Cummings, who has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in relation to the land grabbing allegations in the leaked report, filed a lawsuit against Opposition Senator Jayanti Lutchmedial over her public comments on the report.
Prime Minister Dr Keith Rowley has also dismissed calls for him to take action against Cummings over the leaked T&T Police Service (TTPS) Special Branch report from 2019.
Rowley accused the UNC of acting irresponsibly and unethically by seeking to use the report for political advantage, as he claimed his political opponents ought to know the information in the report was unsubstantiated.
“I could tell you, there are many members inside the Parliament who are in front of the police, facing serious police investigations for serious criminal conduct, including the last Special Branch report that I got. And the reason why they’re behaving like this is because of one particular purpose—as the wheels of justice turn and the moving finger writes, they want the public to believe all of us are the same thing,” Rowley said during a post-Cabinet media briefing last week.