Jason Abdulla, the witness for former president Bharrat Jagdeo in his $10M libel suit against Kaieteur News columnist Freddie Kissoon, yesterday testified that he was unable to recall the contents of most of the articles he compiled to support the case, after an accident left him with lapses in his memory.
Under cross-examination by Kissoon’s lawyer Nigel Hughes, Abdulla said that since the last court date he fell down the stairs in his home. “…And my recollections [are] not so clear, sometimes,” he said, as the case continued before Justice Brassington Reynolds.
The witness, a Govern-ment Information Agency (GINA) media officer stationed at the Office of the President (OP), maintained that any column that was written by Kissoon with the words “dictatorship,” “dictator,” “fascism” and “King Kong” meant the columnist was referring to Jagdeo. However, he admitted at times that he did not know the meaning of other words mentioned in the same line with one of the listed words. Hughes showed him copies of several articles he said he had compiled but he could not recall their contents in some instances, blaming this situation on his memory lapses.
According to Abdulla, in order for someone to understand that Kissoon was referring to Jagdeo, they would need to consider his writings in context. In most of the articles, Jagdeo was never referred to by name, he said, while adding that if anyone was following Kissoon’s articles over a period of time they would have easily known who he was talking about when he used certain words.
Further, Abdulla added that while he had not read any books on King Kong, he had watched videos. But when asked to talk about what he had seen, including attributes of King Kong, he said it was so many years ago that it was difficult for him to recall. Further, he said based on an article and a video, in which the late Walter Rodney described late President Forbes Burnham as King Kong, he knew Kissoon was talking about Jagdeo whenever he used the term “King Kong,” regardless of what else or who else the article referenced. “I don’t take the articles individually, I take them in the context of his writings,” he explained.
In one article, King Kong was referred to as an “ancient gorilla” and when asked by Hughes if Jagdeo bore the resemblance of a gorilla, Abdulla replied in the negative. “I don’t know the difference between Asian gorilla or a European gorilla,” he added when further pressed, much to the amusement of those in court.
Likewise, Abdulla said he understood the word “regime,” as used in one of the articles he singled out, to be Jagdeo. Another article, headlined the ‘Irfaan Ali controversy’ was also singled out and tendered as an exhibit. But when asked about it, Abdulla said he was unaware of the controversy and could not recall the contents of the article, even as he pointed at his temple—as he did several times while reminding about his memory lapses.
The hearing was adjourned after Hughes asked the witness about an article written in the Kaieteur News on Jagdeo’s public attack on him [Hughes]. Jagdeo’s lawyer, Sase Gunraj, objected, on the grounds that it was a printed copy from the newspaper’s online edition. The judge upheld the objection but reminded Gunraj that he had to bring the originals of the copies of the articles he tendered as evidence.
The matter is set to continue on July 5th, when Hughes said he would complete cross-examination after a few more questions. He also advised Gunraj to bring his last witness, as indicated.
Abdulla is the third witness in the suit against Kissoon, Editor of the Kaieteur News Adam Harris and the paper’s owner Glenn Lall, over a June 28, 2010 article titled ‘King Kong sent his goons to disrupt the conference,’ which Jagdeo contends portrayed him as an ideological racist. Abdulla, in his evidence-in-chief, said he had been tasked with compiling articles written by Kissoon in the Kaieteur News about former Jagdeo and the government. He added that some of his duties included monitoring the print and electronic media on a daily basis and compiling articles that were critical of both the president and government. He said these stories are then referred to the relevant persons for response before being stored for record-keeping purposes. The other two witnesses were Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon and OP media monitor Raul Kissoon. Kissoon was due to resume his testimony on May 16, but the court was told that he no longer worked at OP.
