Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Pro­gres­sive Em­pow­er­ment Par­ty (PEP) leader Phillip Ed­ward Alexan­der has threat­ened to sue Na­tion­al Trans­for­ma­tion Al­liance (NTA) leader Gary Grif­fith for defama­tion.

Alexan­der made the threat in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter sent to Grif­fith by his lawyer, Aaron Patrick, on Mon­day.

Patrick claimed that Grif­fith de­famed Alexan­der in a se­ries of voice notes sent via What­sApp ear­li­er this month.

The al­le­ga­tions made by Grif­fith can­not be re­pub­lished, as they may even­tu­al­ly be deemed to be defam­a­to­ry.

How­ev­er, Grif­fith es­sen­tial­ly ac­cused Alexan­der, whose par­ty has formed the Coali­tion of In­ter­est with the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress (UNC) and oth­er small­er par­ties, of be­ing con­tract­ed by the UNC.

He al­so pur­port­ed­ly al­leged that Alexan­der made dis­parag­ing re­marks in re­la­tion to Peo­ple’s Na­tion­al Move­ment (PNM) MPs.

“The above-re­ferred words are defam­a­to­ry to our client in their nat­ur­al and/or or­di­nary sense and/or by way of in­nu­en­do and were cal­cu­lat­ed to dam­age and de­fame him in his per­son­al ca­pac­i­ty and as a can­di­date in the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion,” Patrick said.

He claimed that state­ments were false­ly and ma­li­cious­ly made in re­la­tion to Alexan­der, who is con­test­ing the Port-of-Spain North/St Ann’s West con­stituen­cy in the elec­tion on April 28.

“These state­ments were made by you pure­ly for po­lit­i­cal pur­pos­es, mis­chief, scan­dal, and sen­sa­tion­al­ism, with­out any re­gard what­so­ev­er for the truth,” he said.

“His so­cial, po­lit­i­cal and per­son­al char­ac­ter, rep­u­ta­tion, good­will, and cred­it have been in­jured.”

Patrick gave Grif­fith un­til April 30 to is­sue a full and un­equiv­o­cal re­trac­tion and apol­o­gy. He al­so called on him (Grif­fith) to re­frain from re­peat­ing the state­ments.

He al­so re­quest­ed com­pen­sa­tion for the al­leged dam­age to Alexan­der’s rep­u­ta­tion as well as re­im­burse­ment for the costs he (Alexan­der) in­curred in tak­ing le­gal ac­tion.

Alexan­der’s lawyers said they will file the case if their de­mands are not met.

Con­tact­ed yes­ter­day, Grif­fith de­nied any wrong­do­ing as he main­tained that Alexan­der had made the state­ments that were at­trib­uted to him.

He de­scribed Alexan­der’s pro­posed law­suit as iron­ic as he re­ferred to Alexan­der los­ing sev­er­al defama­tion cas­es brought against him and be­ing or­dered to pay sig­nif­i­cant com­pen­sa­tion.

“I wel­come such a court case where I would be now able to bring all the ev­i­dence to show and jus­ti­fy that Phillip Alexan­der’s com­ments have shown the most dis­gust­ing be­hav­iour of what pol­i­tics and be­ing in pub­lic life is about,” Grif­fith said.

“Thank­ful­ly we have laws on defama­tion, and Phillip Alexan­der has paid the price on sev­er­al oc­ca­sions ... Imag­ine what would hap­pen if, heav­en for­bid, this man is part of a gov­ern­ment where he is in Par­lia­ment, where he is al­lowed to say the most dis­gust­ing things to smear the char­ac­ter of oth­ers,” he added.