Derek Achong

Oil­field Work­ers' Trade Union (OW­TU) Pres­i­dent Gen­er­al An­cel Ro­get has fol­lowed through on his threat to sue for­mer prime min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley for defama­tion.

Ro­get an­nounced the fil­ing of the case against Row­ley over a Face­book post made on Au­gust 29, 2022, in a press re­lease is­sued by the OW­TU ear­li­er to­day.

The re­lease said Ro­get took the de­ci­sion af­ter Row­ley failed to ac­cede to his lawyers’ re­quest to re­tract his state­ment.

"Since Dr Row­ley has failed to re­tract his state­ment as re­quest­ed in a pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ter dat­ed 29th Au­gust 2022, this law­suit seeks to vin­di­cate Com­rade Ro­get's rep­u­ta­tion, ob­tain a full re­trac­tion and apol­o­gy, and pur­sue ap­pro­pri­ate dam­ages for the harm caused," it said.

The post ref­er­enced in the re­lease al­leged­ly ac­cused Ro­get and oth­ers of seek­ing to block two lanes of a high­way.

The ex­act words used can­not be re­pub­lished, as do­ing so could al­so con­sti­tute defama­tion.

"This post false­ly at­trib­uted crim­i­nal be­hav­iour and ir­re­spon­si­ble lead­er­ship to Com­rade Ro­get and at­tempt­ed to as­so­ciate him with un­law­ful con­duct and po­lit­i­cal sub­ver­sion," the re­lease said.

"Com­rade Ro­get has tak­en strong ex­cep­tion to the im­pli­ca­tion that he, in his ca­pac­i­ty as a Trade Union leader, or­ches­trat­ed or en­dorsed acts of il­le­gal­i­ty or sab­o­tage that en­dan­gered pub­lic or­der and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty," it added.

The re­lease al­so claimed the dam­age caused by Row­ley's com­ments was wors­ened be­cause of his po­si­tion as prime min­is­ter.

"State­ments of this na­ture from some­one in such a pow­er­ful po­si­tion not on­ly am­pli­fy mis­in­for­ma­tion but al­so in­cite pub­lic dis­trust and hos­til­i­ty to­ward those who ad­vo­cate on be­half of work­ers' rights and de­mo­c­ra­t­ic free­doms," it said.

Ro­get is be­ing rep­re­sent­ed by Kiel Tak­lals­ingh and Joa­han­na Richards of Sov­er­eign Cham­bers.