'Day in court' for two CARICOM Prime Ministers
Editorial
Guyana Chronicle
October 12, 2003
TWO CARIBBEAN Prime Ministers had their `day in court' Friday with the satisfaction of having their names cleared from allegations that sought to seriously undermine their reputation.
It was a coincidence that both Prime Ministers Lester Bird of Antigua and Barbuda and Keith Mitchell of Grenada had justice done in their favour on the same day.
The outcome of their respective cases underscored the importance of the court in protecting leaders as well as ordinary folks of a society from those bent on character assassination and outright mischief - a regular feature on so-called `talk shows' here in Guyana on opposition-linked `television' outfits.
In the case of Prime Minister Bird, for some two years he had to face public ridicule resulting from a case filed by lawyers for a girl he was accused of raping and also used for drug trafficking. Incidentally, the girl was never brought to court and her whereabouts remain a mystery.
The accusations were mind-boggling. The girl, said to be of Guyanese parentage, was just over 12 years at the time of the alleged offences. A videotape of the girl alone, produced by two journalists working for the `Antigua Observer' media group, known for its hostility towards Prime Minister Bird and his government, was circulated and used at opposition political meetings to vilify the Prime Minister.
On Friday, the lawyers for the girl, now 15 and carefully kept away from Antigua and Barbuda, where she was living up to the time of the alleged "crimes" committed by Bird, withdrew the civil law suit against the Prime Minister Vindication for Bird, Mitchell
A vindicated Bird, said he now intends to pursue legal claims against the lawyers who represented the girl on the ground they were using her to satisfy political and personal objectives.
He said he would also press ahead with his libel suit against the `Observer' company and Opposition Leader Baldwin Spencer, for maliciously slandering him in connection with the allegations involving the girl.
Across in St. George's, Grenada, Prime Minister Mitchell eventually also won his day in court when he was awarded EC$100,000 (US$37,453) against the `Grenada Today' newspaper, its editor George Worme, the paper's printers, `Trinidad Express' and Steve Fassihi, for a libel published on March 30, 2001.
The paper had published a letter from Fassihi, in which Prime Minister Mitchell was accused of being "corrupt" and "incompetent". The author of the letter, currently in the USA, did not offer a defence in the libel action.
Prime Minister Mitchell had sued for EC$1 million but the court awarded him EC$100,000 plus EC$20,000 in legal costs.
Both Prime Ministers would know, from their respective experiences that freedom of the press does not mean abuse and slander of other people's rights, or to engage in mischief for narrow and partisan political objectives.