Sascha Wil­son

A judge has or­dered a week­ly news­pa­per to pay $200,000 in dam­ages to the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co) and four of its (2005) di­rec­tors for li­bel. Jus­tice Nolan Bereaux ruled that an ar­ti­cle pub­lished in the Blast news­pa­per about the claimants was li­bel­lous. It was car­ried in its Oc­to­ber 22 to 28, 2005, pub­li­ca­tion. He award­ed $100,000 to Plipde­co and $50,000 each to Kayam Mo­hammed, David Lewis, Raf­fique Shah and Eti­enne Mendez.

The judge said the four, along with an­oth­er claimant, Lloyd Wal­ters, were all dis­tin­guished cit­i­zens en­gaged in pub­lic ser­vice and "they are en­ti­tled to have their rep­u­ta­tions vin­di­cat­ed by this court with an ap­pro­pri­ate award." How­ev­er, in the 50-page judg­ment, the judge did not men­tion an award of dam­ages for Wal­ters. The judge said he al­so took in­to ac­count the ir­re­spon­si­ble and cav­a­lier ap­proach tak­en by the de­fen­dants.

The ac­tion was ini­tial­ly brought by nine di­rec­tors and Plipde­co against Blast Pub­li­ca­tions Com­pa­ny Ltd and ed­i­tor Fazeela Ram­per­sad.

How­ev­er, four of the claimants failed to give any wit­ness state­ments, nei­ther did they at­tend any of the court hear­ings. Their claims were dis­missed. At­tor­ney Prakash De­onar­ine, in­struct­ed by Richard Ar­joon Ja­gai, rep­re­sent­ed the claimants while at­tor­ney Ramesh Ma­haraj SC, in­struct­ed by Vi­jaya Ma­haraj, rep­re­sent­ed the de­fen­dants.