'Financial blogger' Kenneth Rijock served with Dominica court documents

Controversial Miami-based blogger, Kenneth Rijock, has been served with documents from Dominica in a lawsuit filed by Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit and other senior officials.

Senior Counsel Anthony Astaphan,said Rijock received the document after weeks of trying to locate him – with a private investigators were hired to track him down.

Rijock said he will be taking the matter to the US State Department, will be taking court action and will be filing a counter-suit and a “third party complaint” against other people who he said have slandered him.

Foreign Affairs Minister Francine Baron, National Security Minister Rayburn Blackmoore, and Police Inspector Pelham Jno Baptiste are named alongside the prime minister.

The matterrelated allegations made by Rijock in a blog that as many as 10,000 blank Dominican passports were given to the Moroccan ambassador to Dominica, Mohamed Benjilany, when he visited the island earlier this year.

The government had stoutly denied the allegations and demanded that Rijock retract, apologise and pay compensation to them or face court action.

He refused and a lawsuit was filed in the High Court in Roseau on 15 May.

Astaphan told state-owned DBS Radio that private investigators and process servers were hired and it took weeks to serve Rijock.

[caption id="attachment_702" align="aligncenter" width="499"] Kenneth Rijock will be at the centre of a legal battle. ©Angel Valentin[/caption]

“There were times when they would go and suddenly the lights are off and they knock and they knock and they can’t get him and they couldn’t find him,” he said on Wednesday.

“And then they were told he is in and he is out, he is never there. And eventually they served him yesterday [18 July).”

However, Rijock claimed that he was “not evading service.”

“Mr. Astaphan knows very well where I live,” he said on Q95’s The Hot Seat on Wednesday.

“It is a matter of public record and I did finally receive the process yesterday.”

Countersuit

Rijock said that he has less than a month for his attorneys to file notice for appearance and less than two months to file a defence in the matter.

“But I can tell you that I will be in this case with reinforcements from the United States,” he stated.

“I am also taking a copy of this complaint and turning it over to the appropriate party at the United States State Department.”

In addition, Rijock said he will be filing a counter-suit and a third party complaint “against other people who have slandered and maligned me in the public domain.”

For his part Astaphan was not ruffled by Rijock’s threat to take the matter to the US State Department saying it will not be of any assistance to him.

“As far as I am concerned he can go to the State Department a million times,” he remarked.

[caption id="attachment_711" align="aligncenter" width="499"] Anthony Astaphan, senior counsel to the Dominica government.[/caption]

“There is nothing the State Department can do to help him because the State Department is not going to get involved in seeking to protect an ex-con and smear artist and a man who has gone and made a name for himself as a pathological liar and extortionist.”

He stated that he looks forward to seeing Rijock in court.

“Mr. Rijock is going to understand that his day in court is not like sitting in Q95 or calling in to Q95 or writing his blogs and his rubbish and his nonsense said to him by Dominicans with a hatred for country and government and think it is going to be a joke.”

Astaphan said the matter will be fought to the ‘bitter end.’

“He can rest assured that we will fight him on this case and any other case we intend to fight to the bitter end,” he noted.

Original source: Dominica News Online