Rowley retains Ramesh for lawsuit by senior cop (with CNC3 video)

Political Leader of the People’s National Movement (PNM) Dr Keith Rowley has retained former attorney general Ramesh Lawrence Maharaj, SC, to represent him in an impending defamation lawsuit by a senior superintendent of police. Revealing this at a public PNM meeting in Point Fortin on Tuesday night, Rowley issued a challenge to Snr Supt Surajdeen Persad to make good on his threat to sue him.

Rowley was served with pre-action protocol letters in which Surajdeen is claiming damages for defamation in relation to statements he made at a public meeting in Tunapuna last week Tuesday. “In the Opposition,” Rowley said, “having seen what happened in the last two and half years, where the Prime Minister has led the charge to dismantle the national security system, I received a letter and I shared it with you in Tunapuna last week.”

Rowley said he was careful not to name the author, but spoke about the contents of the letter. Within 24 hours, he said, Persad served him a pre-action protocol letter giving him 21 days to respond. In the letter, Rowley said, he was accused of being “callous, reckless, irresponsible and malicious to expose in Tunapuna confidential national security information.”

“Tonight I have no money to pay costs...I know you going to pay it, because I am defending you, the people of T&T, and I want this lawsuit to go to court, because when it goes to court, I am looking forward to the witnesses and today I consulted my lawyer,” he said. Rowley said he had passed the letter to Maharaj that day. 

Rowley prepared to go to court

Noting that Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar’s announcement of 800 local government projects meant she was in election mode, he said: “We ready. We ready.” As he called on Persad-Bissessar to make good on her promise to hold local government elections when it is constitutionally due, he told Point Fortin supporters to select “high quality” people to present them to the PNM as possible candidates.

Claiming that the Government had done nothing to stimulate economic growth, Rowley told supporters if nothing were put in place to support their current standard of living, it would deteriorate.