ANTIGUA and Barbuda’s Opposition Leader, Lester Bird, yesterday threatened to pursue legal action against National Security Minister Errol Cort, following the move by the police to charge him for addressing a May Day rally without required permission.

On Wednesday Cort, who was defeated by Bird for Antigua’s rural east constituency at the recent March 12 general election, said the leader of the Antigua Labour Party was not an approved speaker to address the May Day rally and he had acted illegally in so doing.

Yesterday, Bird, a former two-term Prime Minister, said he had been invited by the Antigua Trades and Labour Union (ATLU), formed by his late father (V.C Bird), and “inextricably linked” to his Antigua Labour Party (ALP), to address the rally where thousands had gathered at Market Street square.

The ATLU had provided the list of speakers to the Police Commissioner, a Canadian, who chose to “act on political instructions” and, said Bird, took “the shocking, unprecedented decision to disapprove of the speakers (most of them from the union) “. However, Bird explained, the May Day rally was taking place and he was introduced by the chairman of the event to speak and did so. He was subsequently informed about being charged with unlawfully addressing the May Day rally.

His elder brother and a former cabinet minister, Vere Bird Junior, as well as the ALP’s chairman and current parliamentarian, Gaston Brown, have also been charged along with some three others.

Bird said that he and the other affected colleagues will be consulting with their lawyers today on their planned legal actions against National Security Minister Cort.

“I am amazed”, he declared, “at this obvious political folly by a government that has lost its way”.

But in his statement on Wednesday, Minister Cort stressed that “this is a country of laws and it is the duty and responsibility of the police to ensure that these laws are enforced at all times…”

In addition to the charges being instituted against Bird and others the National Security Minister confirmed that Assistant Police Commissioner, Albert Smith, who was assigned to the May Day rally, had been suspended, pending further investigation, for failing to stop the event from taking place with Bird as a speaker.