Antigua PM to sue radio station for false broadcast

Tuesday, March 9, 2004

ST JOHN'S, Antigua: Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda Lester bird has instructed his lawyers to sue Observer Radio for an unsubstantiated claim made Monday on several broadcasts.

In a report for which Observer provided no source, the Radio Station claimed that three brokerage firms in the United States, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs and Smith Barney had "issued an advisory on their internal system on December 3rd 2003". The un-sourced report went on to say that "The advisory specified that no accounts should be opened in the name R Allen Stanford or his aliases, namely Bank of Antigua, Caribbean Star Airlines, Caribbean Sun Airlines, Antigua Sun Newspaper and Lester Bird."

Prime Minister Bird said, "Over the last two weeks I have been warning the public that these false documents would be generated by the opposition owned and controlled media. Last Saturday, I specifically drew attention to the fact that a document was being surreptitiously circulated which named Caribbean Sun, Caribbean Star and Bird, Lester."

Mr Bird declared, "This is the same document that Observer radio has now made into an unsourced claim. Therefore, I have instructed my lawyers to sue them".

Observer Radio is owned by the Derrick family whose principal spokesmen have stated their intention to remove the Bird government from office.

The Prime Minster said, "It is unheard of that any media would carry a story that has absolutely no source. The vast majority of serious media in the world do not carry stories that are not corroborated by more than one reliable source. But the Observer has made this claim with no sources whatsoever".

Mr Bird said, "My office contacted Mr Michael DuVally of Merrill Lynch today and he has made it clear that his firm which uses the same internal system as Goldman Sachs and Smith Barney is not aware of any such advisory".

The Prime Minister said, "Again, I warn the public of these dirty tricks and fabrications by the Observer and by other political forces. Closer to the election date, there will be many more of them. The public has to be vigilant. In the meantime, however long it takes, redress will be sought in the Courts".

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