Ex-prison guard loses court
case against prison director
PHILIPSBURG--The Court tore to pieces on Tuesday all accusations of corruption that former prison guard Siegfried Pataca addressed in a recent newspaper article to Director of the Pointe Blanche House of Detention Rudsel Ricardo.
Judge Herman Warnink in his verdict has given Pataca 72 hours within which he must place an advertisement, and if necessary pay for it, in the local newspaper (not The Daily Herald) that published the disputed accusations, following an interview of the former prison guard by a journalist from the same newspaper.
The judge imposed a fine of US $1,000, up to a maximum of US $50,000, for each day or part of a day that Pataca fails to publicly retract his accusations against Ricardo.
The advertisement must be placed on a page that contains news about St. Maarten, must have “Announcement” as heading, and must contain the following text:
“The Court of First Instance of the Netherlands Antilles, venue St. Maarten, has brought in a verdict on February 15, 2005 in a case between Rudsel Ricardo, director of the Pointe Blanche Prison and my person (Siegfried G. Pataca), a former guard of that prison. In this verdict, the Court has ordered me to state publicly that I have no proof whatsoever of the allegations I made against Mr. Ricardo personally in an interview that was published in this newspaper on January 15, 2005. Signed: S.A. Pataca.”
The judge was in particular piqued by the parts of the article in which Pataca stated that Ricardo was corrupt and he (Pataca) could prove it.
Judge Warnink also pointed at unproven passages in the article, in which Pataca was quoted as claiming that Ricardo knew about sexual contacts between prison guards and inmates, and about the presence of contraband in the House of Detention.
The judge noted that accusations such as the above gave the impression that these abusive situations could be blamed on Ricardo or that the prison director had not taken any action against such situations.
Accusations such as these mentioned above, in addition to the former guard’s unproven claims that Ricardo had lied concerning Pataca’s statements about an escape, Judge Warnink declared were not acceptable in principle.
“In general one can say that highly placed persons, such as claimant (Ricardo, ed.) must be able to stand a good deal, but in this case defendant (Pataca, ed.) went (much) too far,” the verdict stated.
The judge waved away Pataca’s defence that he had not intended to insult the prison director. He said the statements were not careful, to say the least, and therefore against the law, and should be rectified.
On the other hand, Judge Warnink rejected Ricardo’s demand that the rectification should be made point-by-point, saying this was unnecessary and undesirable.
Pataca was also sentenced to pay the court costs to a total of NAf. 1,639.50.
Legal adviser Denicio Brison, who defended Ricardo in this court case, said the verdict should encourage other high placed persons to go to court as well, if they believed they had been wrongfully accused of corruption or suffered under other unproven accusations.
