Popcaan’s legal team addresses ‘nasty falsehood’ as suit filed in Supreme Court

On Friday morning, two attorneys-at-law representing dancehall superstar Andre ‘Popcaan’ Sutherland held a press conference to update the media on the legal steps they have taken to clear the name of their client, whose reputation they say has been sullied by a press release issued by the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF). A defamation suit has been filed in the Supreme Court against the attorney general with regard to what the legal team said are two libellous comments.

In a July 6 release, the JCF dropped a bombshell announcement which stated in part that Popcaan was convicted in 2009 and arrested in 2011 in Barbados for drug-related charges.

Lawyers Bert Samuels and Bianka Samuels of the law firm Knight, Junior and Samuels advised that there was in fact a conviction for marijuana. Popcaan was on a beach in Barbados smoking a spliff. He was subsequently charged and fined. However, they noted that their investigations have shown that no cocaine arrest ever took place. Furthermore, with regard to the marijuana charge, it was expunged and Samuels explained that the JCF erred gravely in mentioning it.

“When we looked at this particular statement, it was particularly offensive because Mr Sutherland’s conviction for the possession of marijuana was expunged by the chairman of the Criminal Records Rehabilitation Offenders Board of Barbados in 2016 and importantly, the relevant legislation in Barbados, which is the Criminal Records Rehabilitation of Offenders Acts states at Section 17 that a rehabilitated person shall, in relation to expunged convictions, for all purposes in law be deemed to be a person who has never been charged with, prosecuted for, convicted of or sentenced for the offence to which that conviction relates,” Bianka Samuels outlined.

She added, “And so, in 2016, that offence having been expunged, it is appropriate for me to say at this time that Andre Sutherland, Popcaan, has no record of any criminal offence in relation to marijuana whatsoever. In fact, we have in our possession the police report which states definitively that he has no criminal record in Barbados. And, importantly, Section 22 of the said act creates an offence where persons make reference to expunged convictions. And so, dare I say, where that statement was made in the press release by the JCF the reference to a conviction as though it is live, is in direct contravention to the Barbados legislation and is in fact a criminal offence in that jurisdiction. And we have made checks in the Jamaica jurisdiction and we have seen that we have identical provisions in our Rehabilitation of Offenders Act.”

Popcaan has been commanding headlines all week, and this, Bert Samuels explained came about because on Tuesday, July 5 “out of frustration [Popcaan] called upon Prime Minister Andrew Holness to intervene in a matter that has caused him great inconvenience and embarrassment”.

Bert Samuels stated that on at least 10 occasions, when Popcaan seeks to enter the United Kingdom he is delayed – not detained – for at least three hours, and the immigration officer informed him that there is a notation against his name. He noted that as an international artiste, Popcaan uses the UK airports as a hub for connecting flights to other parts of the world and this inconveniences him greatly.

DOES NOT EXIST

Bert Samuels, who had earlier spoken to the alleged cocaine arrest, and emphasised that it did not exist, said that the JCF press release was in response to this tweet from him: “Popcaan’s harassment at Heathrow airport is as a consequence of the Jamaican state putting a red flag on his name. Can you believe an [artiste] who carries our flag high and with no criminal record being embarrassed in foreign country because his own country says he is a wrongdoer?”

The JCF in a release then reported that the International Criminal Police Organisation (Interpol) had issued a Green Notice in 2015 alerting authorities to drug-related convictions, and that this might have led to the immigration issues faced by Popcaan in the United Kingdom. “The notice was then reconfirmed by Interpol in 2018,” the release said.

In addressing the Zoom conference, Samuels thanked the prime minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Kamina Johnson-Smith for responding positively, but pointed out that the JCF had not yet taken down the press release from their social media pages, as he had requested.

He said that the contents of the press release was “more than the distress than [Popcaan] faced at Heathrow” and that checks had revealed no evidence and nothing to suggest an arrest coming out of Barbados for cocaine.

“The truth of the matter is that this arrest for cocaine is a nasty falsehood whose odour has crept into the database of many countries, including the British database. If this info was received by the JCF, and if the info that was in their press release is what was relayed to Interpol and other intelligence agencies, it therefore means that I was correct when I said that Popcaan’s experience was at the Government of Jamaica, that is the security of the Government,” Bert Samuels said.

“In fact, if there was an arrest, is it fair for the JCF to say 11 years later to say that [Popcaan] was arrested? What happened after, was he convicted? Isn’t it just reckless to say that he was [arrested]?” he asked.

The lawyers are claiming damages for defamation, costs, legal costs and any other that the court may deem fit.

yasmine.peru@gleanerjm.com