GEORGETOWN, Guyana, CMC – Lawyers representing veteran journalist Enrico Woolford say their client will not retract, apologize, or provide “ compensatory damages” for his story claiming that the Natural Resources Minister, Vickram Bharrat had allegedly been escorted off a plane at JFK International Airport and questioned by Federal agents.
“There will be no retraction, apology compensatory damages, or payments of legal fees, as requested, to your client or any of his attorneys by 14th July 2024 or ever. Emphasis is on ever,” said the attorneys.
Woolford’s attorneys, Eusi Anderson, Nigel Hughes, and Roysdale Forde, were responding by letter to one sent to their client by Bharrat’s lawyer, Sanjeev Datadin, who had indicated that if there were no “clear, unqualified and unconditional apology” and a proposal for compensatory damages and legal costs by July 14, legal action would be taken without prejudice to a criminal charge.
In his letter, Datadin wrote, “I am obliged to make clear that your statement may render you liable to criminal charges; I am presently pursuing this matter with the relevant authorities and receiving instructions in this regard; for the removal of doubt, this notice is not intended to address any possible criminal charges which may result.
“The compliance with the requests in this letter is not to be seen as an indication that criminal charges will not be pursued, nor do they constitute any offer of immunity to it,” Datadin wrote.
Bharrat last Friday denied reports that he had been escorted off a plane on arrival at the John F. Kennedy International Airport and questioned by Federal agents.
Bharrat said that the airline had arranged for courtesies to be extended to him to expedite the customs and immigration process.
“I was not detained or interrogated,” Bharrat told the online publication, Demerara Waves Online News then, saying that he had arrived in New York on an emergency because his father was hospitalized and “not doing well.”
In a Facebook message, Bharrat said, “Best wishes to my father for a speedy recovery…you have always been a fighter and our strength.
“Special thanks to the US authorities for the kind courtesies and professionalism,” he wrote.
Bharrat said that Trinidad-owned Caribbean Airlines (CAL) had informed the authorities of his presence on the flight, describing as “mischievous” the veteran Guyanese journalist’s Facebook post that he “was met, escorted off and questioned by Federal Agents at the JFK airport last night, July 11th, 2024.”
Woolford also reported that it was unclear why those particular investigating officers and not the usual diplomatic protocol officers would meet and escort the minister.
But Datadin wrote in his letter to Woolford that “your account of what transpired is totally false. Your allegation and insinuation are utterly false and without merit.”
Datadin wrote that Woolford’s false and libelous publication on his Facebook page, which has 21,000 followers, was “maliciously posted to deliberately cause damage to my client’s reputation and character.”
However, in their response, Woolford’s lawyers said that their client intends to rely on truth as his defense in either civil or criminal proceedings.
“Truth is our client’s answer to whatever proceedings are brought in any Court in any country,” the lawyers said, adding that the publication’s contents did not contain falsehood, malice, or defamation.
“Consequently, the claim of injury to your Client’s reputation will find it hard to hinge itself to reality,” they said, indicating that Woolford stands firm by the words published and would stand in similar resolve in defense of civil and criminal proceedings.
The lawyers said Datadin’s threat of criminal proceedings violated their client’s constitutional right to freedom of expression.
“Our Client considers the threat of criminal proceedings for exercising his constitutional right of free speech to be replete with humor and empty of substance. He has expressed a distinct aversion to barrels sans contents for obvious reasons,” they wrote, telling Datadin that much of the contents of “both your missive and allegations ” against Woolford are “perilously proximal to harassment of his person and defamation of his untarnished name.”
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