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Court Orders Jagdeo to Pay $17M in Charles Ceres Defamation Suit
(Kaieteur News) – The High Court has ordered Vice President Bharrat Jagdeo to pay Guyanese engineer Charles Ceres a total of $15M in damages for libel, along with $2,150,000 in costs — bringing the total payout to approximately $17M.
Justice Fidela Corbin-Lincoln delivered the judgment on Friday dismissing the libel claims against Kaieteur News and Guyana Times, though she ordered both news outlets to pay costs. Kaieteur News was ordered to pay $500,000, while Guyana Times’ editor and publisher was ordered to pay $1M.
Engineer Charles Ceres
The two news agencies successfully established the defence of statutory qualified privilege in relation to articles reporting on allegations Jagdeo made concerning the allocation of state lands. In her ruling, Justice Corbin-Lincoln found that the defendants — the news agencies — “have established the statutory defence of qualified privilege under Section 14 of the Defamation Act. There is no evidence of a request by the claimant to publish a statement and a failure to publish and no evidence of malice for the privilege to be lost. The defendants’ defence of statutory qualified privilege under Section 14 of the Defamation Act succeeds.”
For Jagdeo, however, the court found that his defence “of justification and fair comment” was not proven.
Vice President Bharat Jagdeo
The lawsuit dates back to 2019, when businessman and prominent engineer Charles Ceres, along with his then-wife Ndibi Schweirs, filed a defamation suit against then-Leader of the Opposition Bharrat Jagdeo, Kaieteur News, and Guyana Times, seeking damages in excess of $200M.
The case centered on statements Jagdeo made regarding sweeping land-allocation claims, in which he alleged that Schweirs, through her husband, had obtained public lands at Canje Creek, Bohemia, and Liliendaal through corrupt, illegal, and criminal means.
In their statement of claim, Ceres and Schweirs sought damages exceeding $200M from Jagdeo over the original statements, as well as a further $200M over the publication of what they described as unsubstantiated and defamatory claims via the People’s Progressive Party’s Facebook page and YouTube channels.
The couple also sought damages exceeding $200M each from Kaieteur News and Guyana Times, arguing that the publications had run articles based on Jagdeo’s claims suggesting the pair may have obtained the lands through immoral, improper, illegal, and criminal means.
In making his original allegations, Jagdeo cited specific file numbers, accusing Ceres of obtaining 1,297.1 acres at Canje Creek and 112 acres at Bohemia, both in Region Six. He further claimed that Ceres had acquired an additional 5,000 acres, though he did not specify their location, and referenced a separate plot at Liliendaal, East Coast Demerara, without providing further details.
With Friday’s ruling, the High Court has found in favour of Ceres on the core defamation claim against Jagdeo, while clearing both news outlets of liability for the manner in which they reported on the allegations.
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