Former APNU/AFC Parliamentarian Charrandas Persaud has filed a $30 million lawsuit against Public Security Minister Khemraj Ramjattan for libel committed after the passage of the no-confidence motion on December 21, 2018.
Persaud voted in favour of the no-confidence vote brought by Opposition Leader Bharrat Jagdeo which led to the toppling of the current Government.
Following his vote against the APNU/AFC, Ramjattan, who is also the Chairman of AFC, ordered that an investigation be launched into Persaud’s activities leading up to the vote after he was accused by the Minister of a corrupt act, taking a bribe and colluding with the opposition among other accusations. Persaud had responded to the Minister’s accusations by pointing out that he took the conscious vote to eliminate the sufferings of persons in Region Six after the Government unilaterally closed down several sugar estates.
Hours after his historic vote, Persaud boarded a plane at the Eugene F Correia Airport, where he left the country for Canada.
In an interview with Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) following the vote, Persaud said he made the move to leave Guyana since he was fearful for his own safety because of Guyana’s history of political assassinations.
The CBC reported that Persaud added that the feeling only got stronger after the vote when he said another MP told him he would be dead that night.
“It was not an idle threat I entertained…Thank God for the advent of cellphones. Too many people were watching internationally and locally,” he told CBC.
Persaud added that he did not take any chances and after the sitting, he went directly to the Canadian High Commission in Georgetown where he flew to Barbados and then Toronto.
Adding to that, Ramjattan had admitted in January that he initiated the ongoing probe against the party’s expelled Member of Parliament (MP).
