JUSTICE Simone Morris-Ramlall has ordered Paul Slowe, a retired Assistant Commissioner of Police and former Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), to pay $10M in damages to Head of the Special, Organised Crime Unit (SOCU), Fazil Karimbaksh for slander, a defamatory statement that is oral.
Slowe was also ordered to pay $300,000 in cost in the ruling issued on Friday by the Demerara High Court. After reviewing the pleadings, Judge Morris-Ramlall determined that Slowe defamed Karimbaksh via Facebook and YouTube posts between November 2, 2021 and January 12, 2022.
On his show “Speaking Out: Exposing Corruption and Incompetence,” Slowe said that Karimbaksh was unqualified to lead SOCU, was a political puppet, committed sexual transgressions, and was involved in the shooting of a young boy in Berbice.
The judge examined the evidence, which included written statements and oral testimony, and decided that Slowe purposefully and frequently presented the defamatory information as fact rather than opinion or commentary.

The judge noted that Slowe started his Facebook page,“Speaking Out: Exposing Corruption and Incompetence,” after being charged and appearing in Magistrate’s Court, implying that his posts were driven by personal grievances rather than genuine public interest.
The court ruled that Slowe had failed to establish any defence of justification, truth, or fair comment on a matter of public importance.

As a result, the judge concluded that the retired cop acted maliciously, particularly because he challenged Karimbaksh and other police officers to sue him and claimed to have evidence backing his charges, which was never presented during the trial.
Judge Morris-Ramlall consequently granted $10 million in damages, a permanent injunction prohibiting Slowe from publishing further defamatory claims about Karimbaksh, and $300,000 in costs against Slowe. The payments have to be made by July 28, 2024.

The judge reviewed numerous local cases for deciding damages, including aggravating elements such as the number of publications, repeated defamatory statements, and Slowe’s lack of mitigating factors, remorse, or apology.
Attorneys C.V. Satram and Ron Motilall represented Karimbaksh, while Slowe was represented by attorney Nigel Hughes.

In his lawsuit, Karimbaksh argued that the slanderous words used against him were calculated to disparage him and intentionally done to embarrass, humiliate and injure his reputation and good standing as the head of SOCU.
According to him, the publications were not only false, but were aimed at tarnishing his reputation and have caused him to suffer considerable hurt, distress and embarrassment.
He argued that the statements were also published with the intention to lower his character, morality and honesty in the eyes of right-thinking members of the public as they are in electronic circulation on social media.
As a result of the publications, he argued that he was demeaned in the eyes of his peers and subordinate ranks of the Guyana Police Force (GPF) and his authority was being questioned.