The politician is suing Gihan Fernando for SCR2 million and
the Times of Seychelles for SCR5 million.
The leader of Lalyans Seselwa, Patrick Pillay yesterday
lodged two civil actions against his former employee Gihan Fernando and against
newspaper The Times of Seychelles, its Chief Editor George Thande, Editor Davidson
Barra and the publisher of the paper, NISA press, headquartered at the Maison
du Peuple.
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| Gihan Fernando |
He is asking the Supreme Court to order Sri Lankan national
Gihan Fernando to pay him damages of SCR2 million for having made “baseless,
illegal, without lawful cause or justifications, malicious and spiteful” accusations
against him.
Those accusations, Patrick Pillay averred, caused him to
have “lost his liberty (Ed’s note: Mr Pillay was arrested on 14 October and
released the same day), suffered pain, injury and sustained loss and damages”.
The second plaint is against the Times of Seychelles for
having published an article on 4 September under the heading “Sexually molested
boy quit training: new serious allegations against Pat Pillay”. The article
refers not to Mr Fernando’s allegations but to those made by a different man, a
former student of Mr Pillay.
The politician says that the statements made “were intended to
mean (...) or by way of innuendo were meant and understood to mean that the
plaintiff was a child molester of young boys (sic), was a sexual predator
preying on under aged boys, used his position as lecturer and as a Minister to
coerce and lure underage boys into sexual encounters against their will”.
According to Mr Pillay’s plaint, this is “untrue, misleading
and constitutes a most serious defamation against his character, good name and
reputation”. He also says that as a result of this, he “has been lowered in the
esteem of right thinking members of society generally and has been brought into
hatred, ridicule and contempt and as a result, has suffered prejudice”.
He has asked for damages of SCR5 million.
It is to be noted that
Gihan Fernando’s lawyer is Basil Hoareau who is also the legal representative of
the Times of Seychelles.
Source: Today in Seychelles
