Senior Counsel and Opposition Leader Could Again Face-off In The Courts

Dominica’s Opposition Leader Lennox Linton has written to Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan seeking forthwith a response from the attorney in what Lennox implied were statements made to defame his character.

According to a news article, published on Dominica Vibes, Astaphan in an interview stated that the opposition leader is being “unpatriotic” which disqualified him from holding public office in Dominica.

Lennox in his letter pointed out that on December 22, 2016 CBS News started airing a promotional item entitled “Preview: Passports for Sale” with the announcement that Steve Kroft would, on Sunday January 1, 2017, report “on how small cash-starved countries, such as the island nations of Antigua and Dominica, offer citizenship for a price, creating ways to ease travel for inter-national citizens, including those running from the law”.

The opposition leader added that he as Leader of the Dominica Opposition, was interviewed by Steve Kroft the CBS journalist and that a small extract of the interview was aired in an advertisement in which he was quoted correctly as saying that it was costing one hundred thousand dollars to get citizenship. He also pointed out that in the TV promotional advertisement clip, one can pay the money from wherever he is, and doesn’t even have to come to Dominica to get the citizenship.

Linton in his letter to Astaphan, also added that on Friday December 30, 2016, in an interview aired on Kairi FM Radio Station, Tony described him in the vilest of terms over the fact of an interview which is yet to be aired.

“You then went on to say, among other things, Linton added, that it was my intention to “sabotage the Citizen by Investment Programme”; that my actions amounted to a “terrorist declaration of war”; that I had embarked on an “economic form of terrorism”; that “the only honest motive Linton would have [to travel to Antigua for that interview] is a desperate pathological desire for facial recognition”; that “Linton from today should be branded as a traitor to this country”; and that I “deliberately suppressed facts that [I] know to be true” Linton said.

He continued that Tony also described him as “a despicable man, a pathological man, unpatriotic and that absolutely disqualified him to represent any single human being in this land, or any life form whether in the form of a horse, a donkey, or a dog in any scenario or in any place”.

Notwithstanding your political leanings, Linton, behooves Tony to enquire of the basis on which he have determined to defame his character and that his duty as a Parliamentary constituency representative in that manner, and to a listening audience which transcends the country’s borders.

As a man learned in the law, Linton said, Tony is fully aware of his fundamental right of freedom of expression and the freedom to hold and communicate opinions without interference, which is guaranteed by the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Dominica. And, as a human being living in a plural and democratic society, the rules of common decency should certainly govern the senior counsel’s conduct and behavior, the Dominica Opposition Leader writes.