Exactly a month ago, 7News told you about the situation brewing between the Kolbe Foundation Belize Central Prison and an organization calling itself the Belize Central Prison Employees Correlation. Well, today, members of the Correlation were summoned before the court to answer to a lawsuit filed by the Prison.
It's in relation to a public challenge that the organization launched against the prison's private owners claiming that too many employees were being fired without due process. The Correlation produced a documentary making several claims against the prison, and they published it on Facebook.
Prison officials contacted the lead members, Herman Blease and Abdul Nunez, requesting them to pull the documentary off the social media because according to them, it was erroneous and –and more importantly – defamatory. They even had their attorneys write to the Correlation leaders, but they refused to do so.
And so, for weeks, the prison has been considering its legal options. Today, the suit finally became real when the Prison's CEO Earl Jones, and Kolbe Foundation's CEO John Woods appeared before Justice Courtney Abel. They brought a claim against Herman Blease, Adul Nunez, Carla Kasimiro, and Carla Budhna claiming the court should restrain them from continuing their campaign against the prison.
They have also brought a libel suit against these 4 respondents claiming that the documentary, pamphlets and other items published information which is wrong and continues to defame the prison.
The matter is still in its case management stage, so it was dealt with in Justice Abel's chambers where the technical issues of the case were ironed out.
The prison has retained the services of Courtney Coye LLP, but the 4 respondents did not have any legal representation. So, as a result, the court granted them an adjournment to find a lawyer.
The matter will go back before the court in July, by which time it is expected that the respondents will have hired their attorneys.
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