GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Legal professionals representing veteran journalist Enrico Woolford say their consumer is not going to retract, apologize, or present “ compensatory damages” for his story claiming that the Pure Assets Minister, Vickram Bharrat had allegedly been escorted off a aircraft at JFK Worldwide Airport and questioned by Federal brokers.
“There might be no retraction, apology compensatory damages, or funds of authorized charges, as requested, to your consumer or any of his attorneys by 14th July 2024 or ever. Emphasis is on ever,” mentioned the attorneys.
Woolford’s attorneys, Eusi Anderson, Nigel Hughes, and Roysdale Forde, had been responding by letter to at least one despatched to their consumer by Bharrat’s lawyer, Sanjeev Datadin, who had indicated that if there have been no “clear, unqualified and unconditional apology” and a proposal for compensatory damages and authorized prices by July 14, authorized motion could be taken with out prejudice to a prison cost.
In his letter, Datadin wrote, “I’m obliged to clarify that your assertion might render you liable to prison expenses; I’m presently pursuing this matter with the related authorities and receiving directions on this regard; for the removing of doubt, this discover shouldn’t be supposed to deal with any doable prison expenses which can consequence.
“The compliance with the requests on this letter is to not be seen as a sign that prison expenses is not going to be pursued, nor do they represent any supply of immunity to it,” Datadin wrote.
Bharrat final Friday denied studies that he had been escorted off a aircraft on arrival on the John F. Kennedy Worldwide Airport and questioned by Federal brokers.
Bharrat mentioned that the airline had organized for courtesies to be prolonged to him to expedite the customs and immigration course of.
“I used to be not detained or interrogated,” Bharrat instructed the web publication, Demerara Waves On-line Information then, saying that he had arrived in New York on an emergency as a result of his father was hospitalized and “not doing properly.”
In a Fb message, Bharrat mentioned, “Finest needs to my father for a speedy restoration…you have got all the time been a fighter and our energy.
“Particular due to the US authorities for the sort courtesies and professionalism,” he wrote.
Bharrat mentioned that Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airways (CAL) had knowledgeable the authorities of his presence on the flight, describing as “mischievous” the veteran Guyanese journalist’s Fb submit that he “was met, escorted off and questioned by Federal Brokers on the JFK airport final evening, July eleventh, 2024.”
Woolford additionally reported that it was unclear why these explicit investigating officers and never the standard diplomatic protocol officers would meet and escort the minister.
However Datadin wrote in his letter to Woolford that “your account of what transpired is completely false. Your allegation and insinuation are totally false and with out benefit.”
Datadin wrote that Woolford’s false and libelous publication on his Fb web page, which has 21,000 followers, was “maliciously posted to intentionally trigger harm to my consumer’s fame and character.”
Nonetheless, of their response, Woolford’s attorneys mentioned that their consumer intends to depend on reality as his protection in both civil or prison proceedings.
“Reality is our consumer’s reply to no matter proceedings are introduced in any Courtroom in any nation,” the attorneys mentioned, including that the publication’s contents didn’t include falsehood, malice, or defamation.
“Consequently, the declare of damage to your Consumer’s fame will discover it laborious to hinge itself to actuality,” they mentioned, indicating that Woolford stands agency by the phrases printed and would stand in comparable resolve in protection of civil and prison proceedings.
The attorneys mentioned Datadin’s menace of prison proceedings violated their consumer’s constitutional proper to freedom of expression.
“Our Consumer considers the specter of prison proceedings for exercising his constitutional proper of free speech to be replete with humor and empty of substance. He has expressed a definite aversion to barrels sans contents for apparent causes,” they wrote, telling Datadin that a lot of the contents of “each your missive and allegations ” towards Woolford are “perilously proximal to harassment of his particular person and defamation of his untarnished title.”
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