Senior Counsel Bernard De Santos yesterday sought to submit hundreds of newspapers as a new witness took to the stand yesterday in the libel case brought by former president Bharrat Jagdeo against Kaieteur News columnist Freddie Kissoon.
However, the move drew objections by lawyers for Kissoon, who argued that there was no relevance.
As a result, Justice Brassington Reynolds adjourned the case to Monday, while advising De Santos to submit the legal authorities for his application.
De Santos, who replaced now Attorney General Anil Nandlall as the lead attorney for Jagdeo, sought to have volumes of the newspapers admitted into evidence during his examination of new witness for Jagdeo, Raul Kissoon, an Office of the President media officer. While Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr. Roger Luncheon was due to continue giving evidence, De Santos explained that Luncheon, Jagdeo’s first and chief witness, had to attend the swearing in of regional officials yesterday.
Kissoon, who is not related to Freddie Kissoon, explained that his duties as a media officer included research, media monitoring and the compiling and archiving of the information from media monitoring, which he has been engaged in since June 2010.
Looking at a stack of ten volumes on the floor nearby, the witness, under questioning from De Santos, said he brought copies of Kaieteur News newspaper, dated June 2010 to present. All the newspapers, he said, contained articles written by Freddie Kissoon.
He noted that he had not counted how many copies of newspapers he had brought to the court but knew that they were bounded in volumes by the month and in some cases two months. This newspaper counted 10 volumes and about 15 newspapers that had not been bounded. De Santos then attempted to have each newspaper tendered as evidence.
Hughes at this point objected, on the grounds of relevance. He explained that the statement of claim for damages was in relation to the June 28, 2010 column and submitted that there was no allegation that the article in question was repeated.
“Any publication that is subsequent to the article complained of does not and cannot be relevant to the issue of libel,” he argued, before saying that he was not sure of the relevance of the tendering of the newspapers.
De Santos, in response said: “I want to make it clear that these exhibits are not intended to prove the libel contained in the statement of claim that was allegedly published on June 28. They are in fact relevant to the issue of damages, because the intention is to show that Kissoon had a morbid obsession to defame the plaintiff, which was demonstrated over the period June to present and is therefore relevant particularly to the question of exemplary damages.”
He added that the consistency of the attacks by Freddie Kissoon “demonstrated a fixation in the defendant over a period of time even beyond June 28, 2010 and even after these proceedings commenced.” De Santos, while noting the objection, added that if court wished he could provide some authority to support his application.
The judge at this point interjected, noting that he did not see the relevance as it related to exemplary damages before expressing a preference for some authority to be presented.
De Santos again stressed that the evidence he was presenting had nothing to do with the issue of June 28, 2010. He then requested that the case be adjourned so that he could submit authorities to support his position.
Hughes, however, maintained that exemplary damages had nothing to do with the repetition of the act complained of.
Jagdeo brought the libel suit against Kaieteur News and columnist Kissoon based on a June 28, 2010 article, titled ‘King Kong sent his goons to disrupt the conference,” which allegedly portrayed him and the government as racist. Absent from yesterday’s proceedings were Kaieteur News’ editor Adam Harris and owner of the newspaper Glenn Lall, who were also named in the suit.
