Opposition Leader, Lennox Linton, and former prime minister Edison James, are due to appear in court early next year on a charge of incitement in relation to public disturbances that occurred in the capital, on February 7, last year.
If convicted they could be jailed for 15 years.
Linton, James and another United Workers Party(UWP) member, Dr. Thomson Fontaine, will appear in court on January 22 next year to answer the charge of incitement.
A bench warrant was also issued for Fontaine, an opposition Senator, who has failed to make an appearance at the magistrate’s court for the last two sittings.
But the charge of obstruction of justice against Linton, along with opposition legislator, Joshua Francis and another senior member of the main opposition United Workers Party (UWP), Nicholas George and Joseph Isaac, the former opposition legislator, who is now a government minister, has been adjourned sine die.
“We will fight this. There was no profanity. There was no incitement to what I said to the people of Dominica on the seventh of February 2017,” Linton told reporters afterwards.
He said that an international artiste, whom he did not identify, had come to Dominica “and then proceeded to insult Dominicans with all sorts of profanities, against the law of Dominica and absolutely nothing happened.
“But you see what’s going on. We are the ones who are finding it difficult to speak in our country and that’s a right we will always stand for. That right to speak, that right to express ourselves, that right to be free spirits that can engage with governments that can say to governments we don’t like this or we don’t like that”.
He said while others may want to live in a country like this “I don’t want to…I don’t want anybody else to live in a country like this. I don’t want my children or anybody’s children to be under this sort of police state where every time you speak and criticize the government somebody wants to tell you foolishness about incitement,” Linton said.
He said the authorities were taking “an innocent, clean speech of February 2017 and they trying to manufacture. They have high powered senior counsels from overseas trying to manufacture incitement out of those pro-democracy statements…,” Linton added.
When the charge was first read out in court in September, the men were accused of wilfully obstructing the police in the execution of their duties, when they refused to allow a truck from proceeding, west, after a public meeting in the capital on February 7, 2017.
“What has happened there is that the learned judge is expediting the matter because it is a matter of not only national interest (but) international interest. So we are going to proceed in January with this matter,” said Trinidad-based Senior Counsel Israel Khan, who is heading the prosecution team.
He said a warrant has been issued for Fontaine “because he was absent, he was properly served (and) no explanation was forthcoming.
“So we are just case managing in order to commence this matter,” he said, adding that the matter is likely to proceed by committal.
“What it means they will hear the evidence, the defence lawyers will cross examine and of there is sufficient evidence to send the matter before a judge and jury that will happen. If there is not sufficient evidence the accused will be discharged,” the prominent criminal lawyer said.
Khan reiterated that the matter is of regional and international importance adding “this country believes in the rule of law and if you want to change a government, you change it by the ballot”.
When the matter came up for hearing on Thursday, opposition supporters descended on the court building and police later arrested attorney, Henry Shillingford, following a brief confrontation.
