Aron Smith reproduces Peeping Tom columns as letters

Sep 17, 2009 News

Aron Smith dispatched two letters to Kaieteur News and Stabroek News and caused these to be published in the September 16 issue of the two newspapers.

The letter that appeared in Stabroek News was dispatched as a report to a large number of recipients, among them Adam Harris, Bert Wilkinson, Hits and Jams, Dr Rudy Insanally, Nation News, Jamaica Gleaner, Kaieteur News, Kwame McCoy and Anthony Xavier, all from e-mail address [email protected] on September 15, last.

‘A U.S. firm exporting restricted items will not do so based on a letter’ was the subject in the dispatched e-mail. It was unsigned.

However, investigations have revealed that the same report was sent to Stabroek News as a signed letter from Aron Smith and addressed ‘Dear Editor’.

The letter appearing in the September 16 issue of Stabroek News was captioned “The US Government does not carry out meticulous checks on all applications for export licences”.

A similar report was also widely dispatched again to a large number of addresses, including foreign media houses and certain diplomatic missions.

This time, it was sent to Kaieteur News as a letter, again addressed ‘Dear Editor’ and captioned “Revelations in the Simels case being grasped for its political value”. It was again signed by Aron Smith. It appeared in the September 16 issue of the newspaper.

The reports and the subsequent letters are in fact columns written under the hand of Peeping Tom.

The Stabroek News letter was the Peeping Tom column of August 4, last. It was an exact repetition of that column, right down to the last comma.

The Kaieteur News letter was again an exact repetition of the Peeping Tom column of August 14, last.

This is plagiarism, said Publisher of Kaieteur News, Glenn Lall. He offered no other comment.