Former murder accused Odinga Greene has filed a $20M libel suit against the Kaieteur News.
Greene, who has been acquitted after being charged on two occasions with murder, moved to the court following an April 26th report in the newspaper, which he said had the potential to be make him the scapegoat for crimes he had no knowledge of.
He had previously told Stabroek News that the report had ruined his life and has left him vulnerable.
The National Media and Publishing Company Limited, the publishers of the Kaieteur News and Michael Jordan, the reporter who penned the story, are listed as the defendants in the action, which was filed by attorney Nigel Hughes on Greene’s behalf.
Greene is seeking damages in excess of $20M for the alleged libel, exemplary damages and an injunction barring the publication or attempted publication of information which suggests whether directly or by inference that he is or was involved in the deaths of Sandra Harvey and/or Nasleen Mohamed.
Harvey and Mohamed were murdered in 1999 and 2007, respectively, and while Greene was charged in relation to both deaths, he was subsequently freed.
Harvey was found in a valley at Wisroc, Linden, with her hands tied behind her back, her mouth gagged and her body propped up against a tree stump. Greene was later arrested and charged. In 2004, he was convicted and sentenced to death but he later successfully appealed the verdict and won the right to a second trial. In 2005, at the end of the second trial, he was freed after it was found that the testimony of witnesses was riddled with inconsistencies.
In the case of Mohamed, whose decomposing remains were found in a coal pit at Wisroc, Linden, Greene was freed in 2012 following a High Court trial.
