BASSETERRE, St. Kitts – LAWYER for former Prime Minister the Rt. Hon. Dr. Denzel Douglas would be moving swiftly to ensure that judgement in the defamation law suit brought against the Democrat Printery is enforced.
This comes as the Court of Appeal today (Oct. 12) upheld the ruling that was passed several years ago, ordering the publishers of the Democrat newspaper to pay $350,000 for allegations that were printed in their news entity, thus bringing an end to a court battle that lasted several years.
Back in 2011, the Democrat published an article implicating then Prime Minister Dr. Douglas and the St. Kitts-Nevis Labour Party as being involved in the murder of Noel Heath.
Attorney for Dr. Douglas, Angelina Sookoo told local radio station Freedom FM that following the publishing of that article, her client wrote to the Democratic indicating that the “accusation against him were totally scandalous and unfounded and called for an immediate apology”.
“The Democrat did not respond! They ignored that request for an apology and this article appeared not only in their print paper but also on their website, which meant that this libellous accusation against Dr. Douglas could be seen internationally,” she told the station during an interview shortly after the matter was dismissed.
Sookoo indicated that because the Democrat failed to file a defence in the law suit, Dr. Douglas was awarded a default judgment of $350,000.
“There was an attempt by the Democrat to set aside the judgement that Dr. Douglas got, and, in order to do so, they had to tell the court what their intended defence was. Based on the defence that they put in - which we challenged - the court found that the intended defence of the Democrat was not a defence known to the law.
“If you try to defend a defamation matter you have to be able to see the reasons why, what you said was either accurate or it was based on some sort of fair comment based on some fact that one could reasonably come to the conclusion that what you said; the comments you made even if it is not true there is a reasonable comment,” Sookoo said.
Sylvester Anthony, one of the lawyers for Dr. Douglas, told SKNVibes that they are pleased with the decision handed down, noting that he did not expect anything different from the Court of Appeal.
“We are going to be moving very swiftly to ensure the enforcement of the judgement,” he added.
Anthony also said: “The article appeared for a matter of days, if not weeks, after Dr. Douglas had denied the incident.”
The Court had awarded Dr. Douglas $300,000 in damages and $50,000 in aggravated damages.
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