PHILIPSBURG — The Court in First Instance had ordered Olivier Arrindell to rectify slanderous statements he made since the beginning of September about Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs and Minister Omar Ottley. Arrindell will have to pay the costs of the two procedures, totaling 7,399 guilders ($4,134).
Minister Ottley took Arrindell to court over accusations of corruption, being a criminal, committing crimes, stealing public money, bribery and money laundering. Ottley asked the court to forbid that Arrindell continues to make false and unnecessary grieving public statements about him and to rectify his accusations with a publication in the Daily Herald.
Arrindell accused Ottley of taking a bribe from the low cost airline Arajet in exchange for a permit to fly on the route from St. Maarten to the Dominican Republic and of stealing public money to finance the purchase of real estate. In many videos Arrindell stated: “We have to do the job and eradicate these people ourselves.” Minister Ottley interpreted this statement as a threat and as an invitation to commit violence.
Arrindell, who was not represented by an attorney, told the court that Ottley has to prove his innocence and that the minister’s demands violate the right to freedom of expression.
The court ruled that statements Arrindell made in a Whatsapp chat group fall under the definition of publication. The group has, according to Arrindell, 10,000 followers. To add insult to injury, Arrindell called the minister a gangster and someone who had been on a boat full of drugs.
The court ruled that Arrindell’s accusations are serious and that he has been unable to show any proof. The way he conveyed his statements also did not sit well with the court because of its “pushiness, certainty and repetitiveness.”The court ordered Arrindell to rectify his statements on social media, especially in his Whatsapp chat group and to stop making misleading incorrect and unfounded statements about Minister Ottley. For every day Arrindell does not abide by the court ruling he will have to pay a penalty of $5,000 with a maximum of $500,000.
Prime Minister Silveria Jacobs also went to court to demand rectification of statements made by Arrindell. He accused her of corruption, doing business with Dwain Carbon and the Carbon Acquisition Group and sexual intimidation within her cabinet. Arrindell also attacked the minister’s sexual orientation claiming that she has to apologize for it to the people of St. Maarten.
Arrindell called on his right to freedom of expression, and said that he had shared his publications only with friends. “Somehow” these publications then became public.
The court labeled the allegations about Jacobs’ sexual orientation tasteless. Written in rather bad English, they are laced with crude swearwords.
The court ruled that all statements Arrindell made about Jacobs are unlawful. It ordered Arrindell to rectify these videos, where he has to say that his statements are unfounded and unjust and that he retracts them. The court also ordered Arrindell to stop making misleading, incorrect, unfounded and unlawful statements about Jacobs. If he does not abide by the ruling, he is facing penalties of $5,000 up to $10,000 per day with a maximum of one million dollars.
Olivier Arrindell is no stranger to controversy. In 2016 he claimed that the government of St. Maarten had given him a business economic permit for his company AVA Airways. But aviation expert Michael Ferrier was quick to point out that Arrindell had only received permission to establish a limited liability company or a private limited company. “There is no economic license and no airline operator’s certificate,” according to Ferrier. “AVA is a hallucination airline.”
Arrindell described himself at the time in a LinkedIn profile as the creative director of Grace Aviation Holdings LLC, a company supposedly established in Wilmington, Delaware. The Grace website only showed a picture of tall buildings and a tiny airplane.
Further in the past, Arrindell has presented himself as a political strategist and as a candidate for Johan van Heyningen’s Democratic Labor Party. After the 2007 elections, he was kicked out of the party “because he broke all the rules in the book.” Arrindell had claimed to have a degree from the University of Connecticut, that he was representing reggae artist Maxi Priest and that he had attended the School of Correction in Curacao – an institution that catered to children with behavioral problems.
In 2009 Arrindell surfaced as a managing partner of Oliwest Ltd., described at the time on a temporary website as “an Antigua-based company that offers modern commercial complexes to the international and Antiguan business community.” In the media he managed to appear on a picture with Baldwin Spencer, the Prime Minister of Antigua and Barbuda.
There were plans for the construction of a business complex that never materialized while Oliwest promised potential investors unrealistic returns of 30 percent plus a 20 percent stake in the net profits of the project.
Verdict 1 – Arrindell vs Jacobs in Dutch
Verdict 1 – Arrindell vs Jacobs in English
Verdict 2 – Arrindell vs Ottley in Dutch
Verdict 2 – Arrindell vs Jacobs in English
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OPINION PIECE
Freedom of expression
By Hilbert Haar
The right to freedom of expression is anchored in our constitution. Some people, like Olivier Arrindell, seem to think that this freedom has no limits but he is of course dead wrong. And, unfortunately, I think that he is not the only one who thinks that you can say or write whatever you want.
Making unfounded allegations against anybody – be it a politician, a businessman or a private citizen – could get you in serious trouble. And rightly so, I might add.
Just imagine this. You have neighbor that you strongly dislike. In fact, you hate his guts. To make his life miserable, you decide to go to social media to paint a dramatic black picture of the guy. Using your misguided perception of freedom of expression, you write that he is a pedophile, that he beats his wife and that he sexually abuses his children.
None of this is true, and you know it, but you expect that your little message will cause your neighbor a lot of trouble. Maybe they’ll kick him out of his job. Maybe his friends will begin to avoid him. Maybe the neighborhood will force him to move.
See how easy it is? Or rather, how easy it seems? Because I figure that your neighbor is going to strike back. He could drag you into court, demanding a rectification. Demanding that you stop with your bullshit accusations.
Telling the court that your neighbor has to prove his innocence (something that Olivier Arrindell tried) is not going to save the day because you are the one who made the accusations and you have to back them up with evidence that you don’t have.
Chances are that you will have to retract your statements. O wait, forget chances. You are going down hard in that courtroom. You will look like the fool you really are. And you will have to take back all those baseless accusations within 24 hours.
The question is of course whether such an outcome of such a court case will satisfy your victim. Unfortunately – at least, this is what I think – that is not so. Your accusations on social media have smeared your neighbor and if you throw shit at someone, something will always stick.
Personally, I have opinions about a lot of people but I know damn well that they are not for public consumption, so I keep them to myself.
Criticizing politicians is okay by me, as long as your criticism is about what they do, not about who they are. It is rather stupid to call a politician a gangster or a lesbian, just because you think this is so. Remember: your thinking does not prove anything. If you want to criticize anybody you will have to put facts on the table. If you don’t have those facts, I have piece of advice for you.
Just shut the hell up and do not mess with our right to freedom of expression.
