Akash Sama­roo

Se­nior Re­porter

akash.sama­roo@cnc3.co.tt

If no apol­o­gy or re­trac­tion comes from Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley by the end of to­day, Op­po­si­tion Lead­erKam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar will be es­ca­lat­ing her defama­tion law­suit to the High Court.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar took is­sue with a state­ment made by Row­ley on April 30 at the PNM’s Sports and Fam­i­ly Day in To­co. In a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to the Prime Min­is­ter on May 4, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s at­tor­neys ac­cused him of say­ing: “When the Op­po­si­tion Leader and two or any oth­er num­ber of pun­dits want to get up in this coun­try and say that the crime that we are all fac­ing, that we are all ex­posed to, that we are all vic­tims of, when they want to get up and say that it is black peo­ple who are at­tack­ing In­di­an peo­ple, I say to­day you all stop that! Don’t go down that road! That’s a road of no re­turn.”

San Juan/Barataria MP Sad­dam Ho­sein, one of the lawyers rep­re­sent­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, said Row­ley was giv­en sev­en days to apol­o­gize or re­tract his state­ment and if no re­sponse comes by the end of Fri­day, he has been giv­en au­thor­i­ty to pro­ceed with fur­ther ac­tion.

“We have in­struc­tions to file High Court pro­ceed­ings against the Prime Min­is­ter for the defam­a­to­ry state­ments he made, even if he re­sponds we will have to re­view the re­sponse he gives but we have in­struc­tions to pro­ceed to the High Court,” he said.

Ho­sein said the Prime Min­is­ter’s le­gal team led by Michael Quam­i­na, SC, re­quest­ed an ex­ten­sion on May 10.

“They asked for an ex­ten­sion be­cause they re­quired time in or­der to take full in­struc­tion from their client to re­spond to our pre-ac­tion let­ter.”

In the cor­re­spon­dence sent to Ho­sein by at­tor­ney Adana Bain who is in­struct­ing Quam­i­na, it was not­ed that no record­ing or video of the state­ment was at­tached to the pre-ac­tion let­ter. Ho­sein re­spond­ed on May 12 say­ing that as Prime Min­is­ter, Row­ley should have no prob­lem in ac­cess­ing his own speech on April 30. He added that this is be­ing per­ceived as a de­lay tac­tic.

Bain wqas asked whether any re­sponse will be com­ing from the Prime Min­is­ter’s le­gal team be­fore to­day’s dead­line, how­ev­er she said she was too busy to re­spond at the time and calls to her mo­bile phone lat­er went unan­swered.

At a post-Cab­i­net me­dia brief­ing on May 4, the Prime Min­is­ter was asked about the le­gal ac­tion.

“Well, Op­po­si­tion and pre-ac­tion pro­to­col is not new to us. In so far as in­no­cence is raised or ac­cu­sa­tions are made, the way to deal with that is through the lawyers. I don’t ad­vise my­self in law and if I’m ac­cused of break­ing the law then more than ever my lawyers will be in­volved,” Row­ley re­spond­ed.

In ad­di­tion to an apol­o­gy, Per­sad-Bisses­sar’s lawyers are ask­ing for pay­ment of a sub­stan­tial sum in dam­ages and pay­ment of all le­gal costs in­curred.