By: Spokesman Newsroom
BASSETERRE, St.Kitts (FRIDAY 27th APRIL 2018)-A ‘Breaking News’ item- allegedly written by political operator(s) of the government- shared via social media following last Friday’s court hearing (20th April) has reportedly helped lawyers of Opposition Leader Dr. Denzil Douglas in getting evidence that party politics is really the reason for challenging their client’s parliamentary qualification concerning the diplomatic passport issue.
In quickly dismissing that particular article, Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan of Dr. Douglas’ legal team gave a media response describing the item as “a piece of political manoeuvering to try to score political points.”
Part of the breaking news item- which carried the headline ‘DR. DENZIL DOUGLAS MUST PRESENT DOMINICAN PASSPORT TO HIGH COURT JUDGE WITHIN 7 DAYS’- read: “After weeks of refusing to present his Dominican diplomatic passport to the Court, Dr. Denzil Douglas has finally conceded that he will hand over his passport to the Judge for inspection.”
The article also claimed that “Dr. Douglas must present his Dominican passport to Justice Ward within seven (7) days. Justice Ward will then inspect Dr. Douglas’s Dominican passport and will take note of all the dates and locations when Dr. Douglas has used the passport for travel around the world. Dr Douglas must also provide a certified copy of this information to the Attorney General” and that “Failure to comply with the order could result in Dr. Douglas being imprisoned for contempt of court.”
According to Astaphan: “…the breaking news item allegedly or purportedly coming out describing the events of this morning before the judge is an absolutely deceitful, deceptive and fraudulent so called news item. Dr. Douglas was never compelled to do anything whatsoever.”
He explained that Dr. Douglas’ legal team agreed with Dr. Douglas that “we would be prepared to disclose the number of times that Dr. Douglas had in fact travelled on the diplomatic passport because he said in his evidence that he had in fact used the passport for convenience and travel and other purposes.”
As gathered from Astaphan’s further comments, Dr. Douglas’ legal team has been mindful about party politics.
“But we insisted that we are not going to have the document disclosed in the high court proceeding, we are not going to have it filed with the registrar, we are not going to file in the registry for copies to be made and a political poppy show made out of the passport so I agreed with Douglas Mendes SC that we would disclose in writing the number of times Dr. Douglas travelled , the dates and so on and that after that is done, we would submit the diplomatic passport to the judge for the judge to verify that the information that we are volunteering is accurate.”
He added: “I think this deceitful fraudulent so called breaking news item gives further support to us on Dr. Douglas’ side that this is all a political piece of maneuvering to try to score political points when things are perhaps not going the way the Hon. Prime Minister and his government would wish… It is shameful that someone could effect such a fraud on the people of St.Kitts and Nevis and be so dishonest in putting out things that are so fundamentally flawed and false.”
The court hearing resumes on Wednesday 30th May.
The Claimant in this court matter, Attorney General Vincent ‘Juicy’ Byron Jr. of the three-party Team Unity Government led by Dr. Timothy Harris, is hoping that in the end the court will rule that Douglas, the Parliamentary Representative for Constituency Six of the St.Kitts-Nevis Labour Party (SKNLP) and Opposition Leader, is both a citizen of St.Kitts-Nevis and also Dominica making him automatically disqualified from his position in the National Assembly.
Dr. Douglas is on media records from a past SKNLP press conference saying “They know I do not have a second citizenship. It is wasting people’s time. It is wasting taxpayers’ money…”