GUYANA | No retraction, No apology, No compensatory damages, Woolford tells Hon Vickram Bharrat

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA, July 16, 2024 - “There will be no retraction, apology or 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.”

This was the word from lawyers for Guyanese veteran journalist Enrico Woolford  – Eusi Anderson, Nigel Hughes and Roysdale Forde – in a letter to attorney Sanjeev Datadin, who is representing Guyana’s Minister of Natural Resources, Vickram Bharrat.

The Cabinet Minister  was demanding compensation from Woolford, for a Facebook post last week that he was allegedly escorted off a plane at JFK International Airport and questioned by federal agents.

According to Bharrat, “I was not detained or interrogated”. In his letter to Mr Woolford, Mr Datadin said “your account of what transpired is totally false. Your allegation and insinuation is utterly false and without merit.”

Datadin went on to tell Woolford, that if there was no “clear, unqualified and unconditional apology” and proposal for compensatory damages and legal costs by July 14, legal action would be taken without prejudice to a criminal charge which was being explored even if there was a civil settlement out of court.

“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 thereto,”  Datadin told Woolford in his letter.

The Natural Resources Minister who denied that he was ever questioned by US federal agents on arrival in the US on July 11, 2024, said that Caribbean Airlines had informed the authorities that a minister was aboard the flight. 

“No, it was courtesies being extended to expedite clearing. I was not detained or interrogated,” he said. 

Bharrat’s lawyer told Woolford  in his letter, that “your account of what transpired is totally false. Your allegation and insinuation is utterly false and without merit.” Datadin, who is also a governing party parliamentarian, told Mr Woolford that his false and libelous publication on his Facebook page with 21,000 followers was “maliciously posted to deliberately cause damage to my client’s reputation and character.”

However, the veteran journalist, with years of experience under his belt, is relying on the truth which is a reporter’s only defence for libel or slander.   “Truth is our client’s answer to whatever proceedings are brought in any Court in any country,” Mr Woodford’s lawyers said.

The lawyers also told Mr Datadin on behalf of their client that there was no falsehood, malice or defamation in any of the publication’s contents. “Consequently, the claim of injury to your Client’s reputation will find it hard to hinge itself to reality,” the lawyers said.

According to Messrs Anderson, Hughes and Forde, Mr Woolford stands firm and strong, by the words published and would stand in similar resolve in defence of civil and criminal proceedings.

The lawyers said Mr Datadin’s threat of criminal proceedings smacked of the violation of Mr Woolfrd’s constitutional right to freedom of expression. “Our Client considers the threat of criminal proceedings for the exercise of his constitutional right of free speech to be replete with humour and empty of substance. He has expressed a distinct aversion to barrels sans contents for obvious reasons.”

The lawyers told Attorney-at-Law Datadin that much of the contents of “both your missive and allegations” against Mr Woolford are “perilously proximal to harassment of his person and defamation of his untarnished name.”