"Guyanese Critic" ordered to pay $8Million to Simona Broomes in libel suit

Social media commentator, Mikhail Rodrigues aka “Guyanese Critic”, lost another libel suit in the High Court this morning and has been ordered to pay $8 million to political leader and activist, Simona Brooms.

In February 2024, Ms. Broomes filed a multi-million dollar lawsuit against Rodrigues over statements he made against her on his social media talk show, falsely accusing her of being a human trafficker and falsely claiming that as a Government Minister she stopped mining operations in the interior for her own personal benefit.

In handing down her decision this morning, Justice Precilla Hanif found that Rodrigues made libellous statements against the Broomes on January 22, 2024 on his Facebook page “They Break News” in a live stream video for his program entitled “MORNING LIVE. WITH THE CRITIC”.

The Court found that he defamed Ms. Broomes when he stated that the Claimant was a part of a “whorehouse” business and was a “trafficker”, meaning that the claimant was a human trafficker. He was ordered to pay $5 million in respect to that defamatory claim.

With respect to his libelous statement about the shutting down of mining operations, the Court also found the statement to be defamatory and ordered him to pay $3 Million to Broomes.

The Court ordered that Rodrigues remove all social media posts and posts from other platforms containing the defamatory statements.

Additionally, the Court also ruled that interest will run from the date of the filing of the Statement of Claim in the matter.

Earlier this week, in a separate case, the Guyanese Critic, Freddie Kissoon and his social media entity were ordered to pay a former APNU+AFC Member of Parliament $6 million in total for statements made against the former MP on his social media pages.

In March of this year, in another matter, the Guyanese Critic was ordered to pay $52 million to the billionaire Mohamed family for statements he made against them on his social media pages.