Jensen La Vende

Se­nior Re­porter

jensen.lavende@guardian.co.tt

Cana­di­an Youtu­ber Christo­pher Hugh­es will now be de­fend­ing him­self against a sedi­tious charge af­ter fir­ing his at­tor­neys of a $US50,000 in­voice.

In an In­sta­gram post on Wednes­day night, Hugh­es said as a new Youtu­ber he did not have the means to af­ford the fees. Hugh­es has had four at­tor­neys since he was charged in May. His at­tor­neys in­clud­ed se­nior coun­sels Anand Ram­lo­gan, Pamela El­der, Criston Williams, his first at­tor­ney, and Rus­sell Warn­er, who works with El­der.

Hugh­es was for­mal­ly charged by Sgt Lee of the Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tions Unit (SIU) with pub­lish­ing a state­ment with a sedi­tious in­ten­tion.

Hugh­es cap­tioned his minute long video say­ing free­dom is not free in Trinidad.

The cap­tion read: “Free­dom is not free in Trinidad! I will be fight­ing my charge of sedi­tion alone.

The 45-year-old fa­ther of three, who plead­ed not guilty to the of­fence and is cur­rent­ly on $100,000 bail, faces a $3,000 fine or two years im­pris­on­ment. He will reap­pear in court on Fri­day.

In his video, Hugh­es de­fend­ed his de­ci­sion to rep­re­sent him­self.

“I have fired my crim­i­nal lawyers, and I have de­cid­ed I'm go­ing to take on this charge my­self. I’m go­ing to de­fend my­self, that’s right! Some peo­ple might say, Chris now you’ve proven that you are a crazy guy, and the truth is court thus far, two ap­pear­ances by my crim­i­nal lawyer, they in­voiced me $US50,000.”

Hugh­es said he can­not af­ford to pay that kind of mon­ey as he is a “fair­ly new” Youtu­ber and will be “go­ing about it my­self.”