Lawyer forces apology and pay out from local paper

| 09/02/2015 | 0 Comments
Cayman News Service

James Austin-Smith

(CNS): The chair of the Human Rights Commission has forced a local paper to apologise to him, pay his legal costs and damages, as well as make an undisclosed “substantial donation” to a local charity after the newspaper published allegations made by the former president of the UCCI, Hassan Syed, about the lawyer. James Austin-Smith, who represented Syed during his extradition, took action last month to force The Cayman Reporter to remove a story and prevent other members of the press from also publishing certain parts of a letter from Syed’s attorneys in Pakistan about him.

The letter laid out a catalogue of issues relating to the allegations against Syed, who is charged with theft and fraud offences amounting to more than half a million dollars that he is accused of stealing while employed as head of the University College of the Cayman Islands. The document set out a number of allegations and claims, including that Syed was working as a spy for the governor’s office. The letter also made allegations about his former attorney, Austin-Smith.

The allegations were published in the Reporter and the lawyer claimed the paper had refused to remove the story, which was published on 16 January, and as result he took legal action. Austin-Smith said the allegations by Syed were defamatory and completely untrue and there was documentary evidence to prove they were false. He stated that if the reporter had called him, he would have been able to demonstrate clearly that Syed’s claims were unfounded.

Following the agreement between the paper and the attorney, who aside from heading up the HRC works for local law firm Campbells, Austin-Smith stated in a release setting out the terms of the settlement between him and The Cayman Reporter, “I am grateful that the publication in question has now accepted that the allegations were unfounded and completely untrue and that it has agreed to print an apology.”

In addition the paper has agreed to pay Smith damages and costs and, at his request, a donation to the Crisis Centre.

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