– Dr. Luncheon, still under cross-examination, maintains that Jagdeo is no racist
TOP Government spokesman and Head of the Presidential Secretariat  Dr. Roger Luncheon  was cross-examined for several hours in the High Court yesterday when the President’s  libel case against Kaieteur News columnist Freddie Kissoon, editor Adam Harris and publisher Glen Lall  resumed  before Justice Brassington Reynolds. The libel case stemmed from an article authored by Kissoon and Published in the Kaieteur news on June 28, 2010 entitled, ‘King Kong sent his goons to disrupt the Conference’, which refers to the Guyanese Head of State President Bharrat Jagdeo as an ideological racist.

A Libel case was subsequently made out against the columnist as well as the newspaper’s editor and publisher.
When the matter was resumed yesterday,  Dr. Luncheon was called to the witness stand and given  a seat  in the well of the court where  he continued to give  sworn evidence under cross-examination by attorney-at-law,  Mr. Nigel Hughes,  leading lawyer for the defendants.
Mr.  Hughes continued to question the high ranking government official in relation  to  the  ethnicity  of the persons who headed Government organisations, agencies,  Commissions,  the  Judiciary and the  University, etc, with the object of concluding that the majority of those heads were of a certain ethnic group,  with the hope  of  claiming  that the President, who was responsible for the appointments, was a racist.
Attorney at Law and Member of Parliament Mr.  Anil Nandlall, who is  appearing for the President, interrupted Mr. Hughes, time and again yesterday, pointing out  that  the line  of cross–examination was unrelated  to the libel case.
Before the hearing was adjourned, Mr. Nandlall  promised  that, on the resumption, he would  re-examine  Dr. Luncheon with the hope of putting the records straight and to show that the President was not  a racist as the defendants were trying to point out.
Earlier, Dr. Luncheon, who is also Cabinet Secretary, had said that during his close relationship with the President, he had seen no evidence that he is a racist.
Luncheon said the offending article in question, that was published in the Kaieteur News,  left him with the impression that the aim was to confuse  the readers   and to have them believe that the members of the Cabinet and Government officials allegedly practise racism  against Afro Guyanese.
Lawyers representing the defendants were Mr.  Nigel Hughes, Mr. Khemraj Ramjattan and  Mr. Christopher Ram.