Popcaan’s Lawyers Attempting Mediation With Attorney General In JCF Defamation Case

Popcaan‘s attorney-at-law Bert Samuels says that his team has opted to go the route of mediation in the defamation lawsuit against the Attorney General over a Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) press release addressing the Dancehall star’s immigration issues in the UK.

“We are trying to arrange a mediation date with the Attorney General,” Samuels told DancehallMag on Tuesday.

The current Attorney General of Jamaica, Derrick Vincent McKoy, assumed office on January 11, 2022, following his appointment by Prime Minister Andrew Holness. Before this role, McKoy served as a commissioner for Jamaica’s Integrity Commission, an anti-corruption body, until his resignation in January 2020.

In July last year, Justice Minister Delroy Chuck highlighted that while mediation was a useful tool to settle disputes and conflicts, it was also not fully utilized. “Mediation is a ‘win-win’ situation,” the Minister had said.

“Trial brings relief to one side but pain and hurt to the other, and the loser frequently feels there is no justice… . With mediation, the parties control the process; they can decide what they give and what they take and, frequently, both sides are happy and a relationship can be maintained.”

The contentious press release, titled ‘JCF Statement on Stop Order Allegations’, was issued on July 6, 2022, a day after Popcaan claimed on social media that the Jamaican government had a role in his continued detention at airports each time he entered the UK.

The JCF had sought to explain that the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) had issued a green notice alerting authorities to Popcaan’s alleged arrest for cocaine possession in 2011, and a conviction for marijuana possession in 2009, both in Barbados, and that this may have led to the immigration issues that the Ova Dweet singer faced in the UK.

In the lawsuit, Popcaan contended that he “has never been arrested in Barbados or any other place for possession of cocaine” and that his “conviction in relation to marijuana” was expunged from criminal records in April 2016.

According to the lawsuit, filed in the Supreme Court Of Jamaica on July 8, 2022, Criminal Records (Rehabilitation of Offenders) Act of Barbados stipulates that “a rehabilitated person shall, in relation to any expunged conviction, for all purposes in law, be deemed to be a person who has never been charged with, prosecuted for, convicted of or sentenced.”

It added that the Act “makes it an offence, punishable by imprisonment, to disclose that a person whose conviction has been expunged, has committed, been charged with or convicted for an offence which was the subject of an expunged conviction.”

Popcaan’s lawyers are confident that they have a strong case that could see the island’s taxpayers end up paying the largest-ever award for damages among lawsuits of its kind.

In March of this year, Samuels said that his team had unearthed evidence that the Jamaica Constabulary Force (JCF) had deliberately disseminated an allegedly defamatory press release about the Dancehall star last year, contrary to their defense in the lawsuit filed over the matter.

At the time, Samuels told Entertainment Report’s Anthony Miller that the JCF sent the press release to approximately 94 contacts, including media houses in Jamaica and the Caribbean.

“We found the email that the Jamaica Constabulary Force news network pushed it out on. There were 94 recipients so, we have countered that part in a reply to their defense to say that you have (and we have the proof of it) sent the email,” Samuels said.

He continued, “We sent the email contacts list to them in the reply where it showed that they sent it to 94 recipients, half of which were news houses in Jamaica and the Caribbean. So, they have slaughtered my client saying (in) their defense that they didn’t cause it to be published and they were caught with their hands in the cookie jar with 94 recipients of their emails sending out falsehood that one; he was arrested for cocaine that no other news media seemed to have caught, and that he has a conviction for marijuana which is a criminal offense committed by the Jamaica Constabulary Force.”