TV6 ordered to pay $350,000 for labelling a customs officer a terrorist

Derek Achong

A tele­vi­sion sta­tion has been or­dered to pay over $350,000 in com­pen­sa­tion to a cus­toms of­fi­cer it ac­cused of be­ing a ter­ror­ist linked to the Is­lam­ic State (ISIS).

High Court Judge Ava­son Quin­lan-Williams or­dered the com­pen­sa­tion this week as she up­held Clint Rivers' defama­tion case against One Caribbean Me­dia Lim­it­ed (OCM) and in­ves­tiga­tive jour­nal­ist Mark Bas­sant.

The law­suit cen­tred around an in­ves­tiga­tive re­port from Bas­sant that was aired on OCM's tele­vi­sion sta­tion CCN TV6 on April 15, 2015.

Rivers claimed that the re­port al­leged that he had ties to ISIS and left Trinidad in 2014 to trav­el to the Mid­dle East to serve as a for­eign fight­er.

In his law­suit, Rivers, whose le­gal team was led by at­tor­ney Wayne Sturge be­fore he stopped prac­tis­ing law to serve as a Cab­i­net min­is­ter, claimed that the al­le­ga­tions were com­plete­ly false.

"Al­though the Claimant is a fol­low­er of Is­lam, the Claimant has in no way been in­volved with the in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­i­sa­tion known as ISIS or any oth­er ter­ror­ist or­gan­i­sa­tion whether lo­cal­ly or in­ter­na­tion­al­ly based," his lawyers said.

They claimed if Bas­sant and the sta­tion had con­duct­ed prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions with im­mi­gra­tion au­thor­i­ties, they would have learned that he left Trinidad in 2014 to per­form Ha­jj in Sau­di Ara­bia.

Rivers claimed that the re­port grave­ly af­fect­ed his and his fam­i­ly's life.

He claimed that in Feb­ru­ary 2018, po­lice ar­rest­ed him while he was at home with his sev­en young chil­dren.

He was de­tained for sev­er­al days dur­ing which he was ques­tioned over pur­port­ed links to ISIS and an al­leged plot to desta­bilise Car­ni­val cel­e­bra­tions.

"The Claimant and his fam­i­ly have suf­fered con­sid­er­able hurt, dis­tress, and em­bar­rass­ment," his lawyers said, as they claimed that his chil­dren were bul­lied at school based on the al­le­ga­tions.

They al­so claimed that he lost clients who he would pro­vide pri­vate trans­porta­tion ser­vices in his spare time.

In de­ter­min­ing the case, Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams found that the state­ments in the re­port were defam­a­to­ry to Rivers as claimed.

She re­ject­ed the com­pa­ny's de­fence that the re­port was the prod­uct of re­spon­si­ble jour­nal­ism.

In de­cid­ing on the com­pen­sa­tion for Rivers, Jus­tice Quin­lan-Williams did not con­sid­er his ar­rest and de­ten­tion al­most three years af­ter the re­port was aired.

The com­pa­ny was al­so or­dered to pay Rivers' le­gal costs for pur­su­ing the case.

Rivers was al­so rep­re­sent­ed by Lemuel Mur­phy, and Alex­ia Romero, of Regius Cham­bers.