PORT-OF-SPAIN – Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar today demanded “an unqualified and proper apology” from Opposition Senator Fitzgerald Hinds for saying the Trinidadian leader deceived people when she said the government corruption watchdog exonerated her over a complaint he made against her.
A letter from Persad-Bissessar’s lawyers obtained by the media here has given Hinds the chance to pay his way out of a lawsuit and apologise, or face being dragged before the courts.
The letter stated that the prime minister intends to sue the senator for libel and claim damages; obtain an injunction against Hinds making the statements or repeated a similar slander; and claim legal costs.
“As a sensible alternative to long and expensive litigation our client is prepared to accept from you by way of settlement of this matter . . . an unqualified and proper apology in terms to be agreed; the payment of a substantial sum in damages to demonstrate the baselessness of your allegations and to compensate our client for the injury to her reputation and the considerable distress that has been caused; and the payment of our client’s legal costs”, stated the letter, usually issued by attorneys to a prospective plaintiff before a court action.
In late July, Persad-Bissessar announced to journalists that the Integrity Commission had written her to state its rejection of a complaint Hinds made against her.
The Commission deemed that the prime minister had not broken the law governing integrity in public life when she stayed at the private home of her friends, the Gopauls, following the May 2010 general election which swept her People’s Partnership coalition into office.
Ralph Gopaul’s transport firm later won a 40 million TT-dollar (BDS$12.6 million) government contract to transport gas for the state-owned Trinidad and Tobago National Petroleum Marketing Company (NP).
But a week later, Hinds called a news conference of his own to lambast the prime minister. He said she was “deceiving the nation” because the Integrity Commission had said in its letter that while she had not breached the Integrity in Public Life Act, it was still investigating another aspect of his complaint.
“The other aspect of your complaint has been considered and is being investigated by the Integrity Commission,” said the watchdog’s letter to Hinds. “You will be informed of the decision of the Commission in due course.”
Said Hinds at his news conference: “Ladies and gentlemen, when that deceptive, smiling prime minister waved that letter in front of you, she did not tell you that last paragraph which she would have known.
She told you only an element of it, deliberately hiding from the national community the fact that it was only one aspect of the complaint that was rejected.”
But last week, the commission responded to the prime minister’s query of any pending complaints against her. The commission said there was no complaint regarding her.
Persad-Bissesar’s attorneys said Hinds’ statements to the media “designed to bring our client into odium and disrepute in the eyes of the national and international community” and were made out of “spite, hatred, ill will and malice”.
“At the time you made the said statements you also knew that there was no basis whatsoever for alleging that the Honourable Prime Minister had used her influence to secure the award of contracts to the Gopaul family by the National Petroleum Marketing Co. Ltd.,” stated Persad-Bissessar’s attorneys in their letter to Senator Hinds. (CMC)
