EDITOR’S NOTE: The following article is written by Brenda West of Family Security Matters (FSM). FSM is a project of the Centre for Security Policy described as a hawkish security policy think tank and advocacy group. One part of the article which might prove libelous has been deleted.
The Bangladeshi Bandit strikes again. Previously, Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury pulled off one of the biggest scams of the decade. He conned broad swathes of the Western world into believing that he was an anti-Islamist and “Muslim Zionist” journalist and publisher, a persecuted friend of the West in need of support and protection. But the persecution, set in motion by a staged arrest at a Bangladesh airport, was a fake. Choudhury’s ruse bought him lots of fame, donations, and the opportunity to swindle large amounts of even more money from his female Jewish supporters.
Choudhury, the fake freedom fighter, uses his online newspaper to publish articles favoring Islamists and to shill for the horrid dictatorship of North Korea, friend of Islamist Iran and enemy of the West and Israel.
An official in the Bangladeshi embassy declares that Choudhury is well-known throughout his own country as a “complete liar and cheat.” A Bangladeshi nun – a genuine human rights activist – explains why Choudhury has not been brought to justice: he has too many ties to powerful Islamists and mobsters.
Choudhury likes to boast that he is an “award-winning journalist.”
In his latest scam iteration he is using his newspaper to intimidate the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica into paying him mega-bucks as hush money for alleged scandals. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit became a target for Choudhury’s Weekly Blitz starting in November, 2011. The Blitz ran a series of articles accusing Skerrit of a variety of crimes: selling passports and diplomatic immunity to people who did not deserve them, having ties to Iranian mobsters who counterfeit U.S money, accepting money from the Ghaddafi family, being involved with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, giving refuge to criminals from India – the arch enemy of Bangladeshi fundamentalists, Choudhury’s previous and unreconstructed political identity.
In short, Choudhury claimed in his newspaper that Skerrit and his attorney, Anthony Astaphan, are running a rogue regime that has turned Dominica into “the safe haven of criminals and the mafia.” Choudhury never saw fit to offer any proof for these allegations. Readers of my previous articles on Choudhury will remember that he has been shown to have ties to mobsters and Islamists; readers of the Blitz will also see numerous articles there speaking well of the Ghaddafi regime. So his efforts to accuse someone else of his own bad actions are laughable, at best.
More serious is the following extortion letter, forwarded to me by Dominican journalist Lennox Linton in response to my series of articles exposing Choudhury’s various frauds. The letter – written by a representative for Choudhury, as is identified in the first sentence – demands $60,000 upfront and $10,000 monthly maintenance money from the Prime Minister to cease publishing bad news about him. Mr. Astaphan, to whom the letter was sent, is as stated above the attorney for Mr. Skerrit:
From: Khurshid Ahmed Khan <[email protected]>
Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2011 at 6:47 PM
Subject: Bangladesh Newspaper on Dominica – Top Secret
To: [email protected]
Dear Mr. Anthony Astaphana,
I am contacting you under the instructions of the editor of Weekly Blitz newspaper Mr. Choudhury, who has asked me to convey the following message to the government and the Honorable Prime Minister of Dominica through your good office:
We do not have any enimity with government of Dominica or the Honorable PM Mr. Roosevelt Skeritt,
Weekly Blitz is a newspaper with tremendous influence globally,
The team already has prepared many installments of the to be published reports, which surely will put the government of Dominica and the PM in huge political crisis,
You can assume, some political opponents of Honorable Prime Minister Mr. Roosevelt Skeritt along with some other forces are also providing lot many information on the issue,
If you can directly check with the Honorable PM Mr. Skeritt, if he and his government is willing to use the global influence of Weekly Blitz in not publishing the pending reports, rather join hands with his government in combating all lies of thedominican.net and other people therein,
In such case, of course a mutually beneficial arrangement should be reached in immediately,
The Honorable PM can either accept or reject this cooperation offer,
If you want to accept this offer, this must be kept TOP SECRET and all such communication should only be on this email,
We provide political campaign service to some governments and organizations in the world, under specific fees, which is as follows:
Upfront payment for becoming our top secret special client: US$ 60k. Total fees per month: US$ 10k (the upfront amount will be adjusted with the due monthly installment on 50:50 basis. All such financial dealing must be done in third country. (emphasis added.)
If we do not hear from you in next few hours, we shall consider our offer to have been rejected. If you accept the offer, be rest assured, your client will get multiple fold benefit of the amount they are paying to Blitz.
Truly
Khurshid Khan
And then the blistering articles on the Skerrit regime stopped. Five old articles attacking Skerrit were pulled from the Blitz, as one can see on the Blitz’s index page. Still standing, however, is the impact of the Blitz in Dominican press articles and its insinuation of itself into the comments section of Dominican articles. To this day, even though the stories have been pulled, there has been no apology published in the Blitz.
Choudhury tries to back out of his crime by claiming that he – the award-winning journalist, who surely should know how to conduct an investigation – was misled by others even as he contradictorily assures readers that the Blitz was conducting its own research.
Whether Mr. Skerrit is guilty or innocent of Choudhury’s incendiary claims is not the focus of this report. That would be a matter for a different investigation.
What the world must know is that a serious crime has been committed. Choudhury, the fraudulent “peace activist,” has presumed to extort money from the duly elected head of a government, one that is half way around the world from his own country.
The reach of this global criminal has been extended. Choudhury is like a pirate riding the high seas of the Internet, looking for his next victim. He must be stopped.
Keep in mind that the legislative bodies of the United States, Europe, and Australia have all been deceived into passing resolutions honoring Choudhury as a moral journalist, and pressuring Bangladesh to stop harassing him, if indeed that harassment ever really happened. Those resolutions must be reversed. Choudhury is using them as cover to commit crimes of increasing boldness. New resolutions must be passed urging Bangladesh to put this monster behind bars and bring the world just a little bit closer to real peace.
Family Security Matter’s Editor’s update: Mr. Skerrit did not pay Choudhury any money and declined to sue him because it was too costly to bring charges against someone in Bangladesh.
No libel here!!! As a friend of the author, I can say that the original publisher pulled this story for fear it was libelous after getting an email from someone who claimed it hurt “his country.”
None of this makes sense. A person has legal standing to sue, not a country. Moreover, Skerrit does not deny that he received an extortion letter, so where is the libel?
It would be nearly impossible for this person to prove libel. First of all, Skerrit is a public figure and they are fair game for journalism. You remember, I hope, freedom of the press??? Also, Ms. West would have had to have had a malicious intent toward the prime minister. But since the article actually takes pains to protect Skerrit, how could it be shown she had a malicious intent?
ALSO it would have to be proved that she KNOWINGLY printed a falsehood. That’s according to U.S. libel law and the author resides in the U.S. U.S. journalists are now protected from international law suits in other jurisdictions by Rachel’s law.
Kudos to this journal for not pulling the article.
OK gullibleros it is too expensive to sue Choudhury-kool. Remember when Tony Astaphan was asked why not sue Thomson Fontaine his only response was- “ Weekly Blitz is the least of my problem” he was only interested in Thomson Fontaine. Tony could have simply told us that it was too expensive at the beginning. Now we are hearing it is too expensive. I am sure that the PM of Dominica can get a lawyer in Bangladesh willing to sue the Weekly Blitz for a few Millions. There are a lot of lawyers waiting for those cases and willing to get paid only if they win the case. According to unelected PM Tony Astaphan the accusations against Roosevelt Skerrit are absolute lies so that should be a slam dunk case.
Observation #2 Gullibleros – Why have we not received a public and internationally broadcast apology from Choudhury. Just a question – Could it be that Choudhury thinks that if he offer an apology then the commitment Hush mouth /monthly fee could go down the drain? Just asking men- I’m not making any accusations DNO.
Let me make sense of the decision to sue Fontaine. In the land where the accused corrupt PM is popular 18-3 and later 19-2 why be so bothered with the little accusations by Thomson Fontaine who is actually not living in Dominica. Now almost every week we are hearing the same insinuations from Lennox yet they are not suing Lennox Linton. I use the word insinuations because the writ /claims from Tony Astaphans to Fontaine on behalf of Roosvelt Skerrit the claims are ALL about insinuations – not one of the complains by the claimant is based on direct accusation- every one of them is based on “ it can be interpreted”.
I have a few Bangladeshi friend from college and we still play cricket together if Tony wants a Bangladeshi lawyer I can get him one willing to get paid only if he wins the case. Pro Bono I am offering you Tony. For one put honesty where your mouth is.
Oh the corrupt ones with the excuses that always defy logic.
The looming questions Mr Editor is Why the Clam Chouder dude went silent and coincidentally the PM disappeared without a trace and soon after his return Tony Astaphan mouth started running. Tom drunk but Tom no filling any sheet.
wow, that s some serious stuff, if it at all true. we cannot say it is true unless we have proof, and as far as i can see, there is not much proof, we need more to decide if it is true or not.
Skerrit is taking this country to new heights before it goes to the other direction.
Da im sorry
nEW hEIGHTS OR nEW lOWS? tHEN aGAIN, down is a length too.
Incredible. God help us.
The guy looks like a vampire to me.
I find one thing strange here: “The editor gave us the proof by posting the email…But where is the proof that no payment was made…”
Is it that Skerrit told him so?
I don’t believe much that Skerrit says.
This seems fishy to me.
Nice smile
Your work in the sewer and you are destined to come out with sewage on your clothes and the scent will follow you to the shower.
Play with dogs you get fleas
Where there is blood in the water the sharks come out to feed.
Is my comment OK DNO?
OK gullibleros it is too expensive to sue Choudhury-kool. Remember when Tony Astaphan was asked why not sue Thomson Fontaine his only response was- “ Weekly Blitz is the least of my problem” he was only interested in Thomson Fontaine. Tony could have simply told us that it was too expensive at the beginning. Now we are hearing it is too expensive. I am sure that the PM of Dominica can get a lawyer in Bangladesh willing to sue the Weekly Blitz for a few Millions. There are a lot of lawyers waiting for those cases and willing to get paid only if they win the case. According to unelected PM Tony Astaphan the accusations against Roosevelt Skerrit are absolute lies so that should be a slam dunk case.
Observation #2 Gullibleros – Why have we not received a public and internationally broadcast apology from Choudhury. Just a question – Could it be that Choudhury thinks that if he offer an apology then the commitment Hush mouth /monthly fee could go down the drain? Just asking men- I’m not making any accusations DNO.
Let me make sense of the choice to sue Fontaine. In the land where the accused corrupt PM is popular 18-3 and later 19-2 why be so bothered with the little accusations by Thomson Fontaine who is actually not living in Dominica. Now almost every week we are hearing the same insinuations from Lennox yet they are not suing Lennox Linton. I use the word insinuations because the writ /claims from Tony Astaphans to Fontaine on behalf of Roosvelt Skerrit the claims are ALL about insinuations – not one of the complains by the claimant is based on direct accusation- every one of them is based on “ it can be interpreted”.
I had a few Bangladeshi friend from college and we still play cricket together if Tony wants a Bangladeshi lawyer I can get him one willing to get paid only if he wins the case. Pro Bono I am offering you Tony. For one put honesty where your mouth is.
Oh what a world we live in when men do desperate things.. Father have mercy upon us. You are so merciful and also what a gullible people we are and always look for the “evil and slanderous” to bring down our bros and sis. Lord again I beg you have mercy upon us. When will we look for the good in others and promote it????
Lord have mercy!
can we stop the hatred and love even if we do not agree with someone all the time and give people their flowers due. Give lizie her lipstick too. Should we hate so much that we revel in slander??? Can we not speak the truth about someone even we did not agree or had some differing opinion in a prior matter. Truth and what is good will prevail over what is evil.. Do we remember that there is a Supreme Being who created the Heavens and the Earth and we are just passing thru. If we did we would know that we should love and stop creating strife and confusion and using the name of “Patriotism – Love of Country. God’s word says “peace” not war.
“In his latest scam iteration he is using his newspaper to intimidate the Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica into paying him mega-bucks as hush money for alleged scandals. Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit became a target for Choudhury’s Weekly Blitz starting in November, 2011. The Blitz ran a series of articles accusing Skerrit of a variety of crimes: selling passports and diplomatic immunity to people who did not deserve them, having ties to Iranian mobsters who counterfeit U.S money, accepting money from the Ghaddafi family, being involved with Hamas and Hezbollah terrorists, giving refuge to criminals from India – the arch enemy of Bangladeshi fundamentalists, Choudhury’s previous and unreconstructed political identity.”
Is Choudhury the same blogger who goes by the name “WiZDom” ???
SO, Skerrit sues Thomson Fontaine for sending an email link to the Weekly Blitz article, yet refuses to sue the Weekly Blitz. Now that Brenda has published those allegations will Skerrit sue her.
Thomson NEVER said anything close to the allegations raised by the WB and Brenda. He simply kept the focus on the Passports but Skerrit is suing him…go figure!
Clearly political….
why if you guys dont understand and article , you dont just ask someone to explain it to you. this will help, instead you just go making comments which call you for what you are. the article is an indictment on choudhury;not PM Skerrit so why should he sue the lady.
Dear DNO Editor:
This article which you have re-published from http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.11476/pub_detail.asp – – – DNO neglected to also publish the FSM Editors note at the bottom of the article:
Editor’s update: Mr. Skerrit did not pay Choudhury any money and declined to sue him because it was too costly to bring charges against someone in Bangladesh.
Michael Davis
Managing Director of Legal Affairs
Global Political Solutions, LLC
1725 I Street, NW Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006
http://www.globalpoliticalsolutions.com
Do we expect Mr. Skerrit or Mr. Astaphan OR Mr. Choudry to say that money was paid?
Why were the articles pulled out with no appology?
I am sure that there is much more to it than what we are being told.
time will tell
Did anyone read the editors comment reference to this article. If one were to Google weekly blitz one would find that all the articles referring to Dominica has been removed because the weekly blitz found them to be false.
Also in the letter Choudhury tries to back out of his crime claiming that he – the Ward winning journalist, who should know how to conduct an investigation-was misled by others even as he contradictorily assures readers that the blitz was conducting his own research.
Is Lennox insinuating that what Brenda jEst wrote is false, since he sent her the attached letter.
Admin DNO could you put back the link which was on the article so that your readers could read some of the links attached.
Readers take hid have you all noted the email addresses. Is Tony Astaphans name spelt correctly? What’s with the date? We are two months into 2012 already. Could this be a deliberate attempt to side track us from what is really going on? Maybe because they have no further proof on the Thompson Fontaine issues. How much research to do we ourselves do on this so called scammers. As we all sit and read and type on DNO any one can create two gmail accounts. Bla bla bla. Let us stay focused for those of us who really in fact live in Dominica. What is happening on a daily basis when we wake up to he radio stations, when we get on the buses to go to work and do our daily transactions. What is affecting us now is what we should be concerned about. Who says that the PM is an idiot to pay such large sums of money before first tracking down who this individual is. Come on people. I am sure he has more clout than we give him credit for. Is he that busy that he is not able to get the right kind of help to protect himself from all these nonsensical matters. If he knows himself well he will probably be busy organizing for the next general election campaign. I hope and finding newer ways to manage the countrys’ affairs. I hope. And NO I am not Labourite trust me
But they suing Thomsom Fontaine. The smart people of Dominica must inevitably ask- Why is Mr Skerrit not taking not filing a libelous and defamatory law suit against Choudhury.
Why is the government of Dominica so silent on the matter. It seem to me that Tony and Skerrit for one reason or another is afraid of tackling Choudhury but they were quick to go after Thomson Fontaine.
We are supposedly a more enlightened people yet basic common sense seem to be lacking or is because Like Dice said we put party before country. Are really enjoying the fruits of our misplaced loyalty?
I am no sucker for political party therefore and I must ask – how the heck did Dominica get involved in this diabolical plot of this extortionist? The PM need to explain that and also why the extortionist went into mute mode after the extortion emails?
check the website of this article for the editor’s note at the bottom.
because it is a waste of time and money. why o it anyways?
Wow! This story seem to be taking some interesting twists and turns.
I am going to wait to see the next chapter in this saga…
I watchin’ still!!!
So where is the editor’s note?
Now, I understand the rest of the story. In short, you live in deceit, you’ll get trapped in deceit. There’s a lot more to be revealed concerning the behaviors of those invoved in this saga. I’ll continue to stay tuned, to include doing my own little investigation and research on that subject. Dominicans! This is just the tip of the iceberg concerning the shenanigans our politicians are involved in on a daily basis.
What a coincident that an island undetectable on the map and Chuodhury all the way in Bangladesh zoomed in on the PM of this tiny island as an” innocent target” .Note the con man did not go after the PM of Barbados,St Lucia, Bahamas,Antigua, St Vincent, St Kitts etc – the man chose the Prime Minister of Dominica. The question that all Dominicans must ask is why this con man selected PM Roosvelt Skeritt.
YEAH! I CAME TO THE SAME CONCLUSION… NO SMOKE WITHOUT FIRE.
THERE WOULD BE NO ATTEMPT AT BLACKMAIL IF THERE WAS NOTHING TO BLACKMAIAL ON
To C. bruce
I do concur with you regarding the old saying that there is no smoke without fire.We must not forget fires are not always created naturally as we would like to think, it is the reason why there are arsonist. Let us not forget we are talking politics.
have you ever gotten en email or letter all the way in Dominica from fraudsers in Africa??? They zoomed all the way to little D/ca to try to get people’s money, and it works sometimes. Its the same concept here – getting money from scams.
Only Dominica huh. The scammers that you are refering to ( Nigerians for example) target people all over the world. Choudhury did not Target the St Lucia PM , he did not target Gonzales of St Vincent. 99.999% of the people in Bangladesh don’t know about Dominica.
Yah Choudhury went on the google map closed his eyes and selected Dominica he by passed Jamaica PM, DR president, Trinidad zoomed in with a mag X10 and found Dominica.Use your mind not your emotion. Ask the right questions so you can develope your mental capacity.
Why this part was left out
Editor’s update: Mr. Skerrit did not pay Choudhury any money and declined to sue him because it was too costly to bring charges against someone in Bangladesh.
I am not a fan of PM Skerrit’s actions and policies, and I really really WISH he’d get rid of his current Attorney and refrain from a lot of his practices and his style of running the country but I clicked on the link and, in all fairness, I saw this editor’s note at the end of the article:
“Editor’s update: Mr. Skerrit did not pay Choudhury any money and declined to sue him because it was too costly to bring charges against someone in Bangladesh. ”
You can check it out for yourself if you click on the link. Mark you, I was in disbelief when I read the article on this page and was even getting furious and embarrassed (for my country) by what the article suggested but I just wanted to see for myself if the source was legit and saw the editor’s note at the end. I was looking to see if there were any comments (which there aren’t btw).
So Lennox Linton sent you the extortion letter eh, hmmmm ok then.
What are you getting at? Lennox repeatedly warned Skerrit and Tony live on the air that this was a scam. Lennox exposed the entire footpath of the emails and the IP addresses that con artist was using to send himself emails, answer, change names and send more! Lennox Linton the black man from Marigot you all so love to hate was the one who challenged this man to STOP slandering the OFFICE OF THE PM and the GOOD NAME OF DOMINICA! meantime Skerrit and Tony were not listening they were busy making late night calls and sending emails even trying to get the con man to visit Dominica at Skerrits expense.
If not for Lennox that thief would have drained Dominica and who really knows if he didn’t get a first hand out, why he swiftly started taking out the articles. Many of us copied those articles and attacked that con-man in defense of Dominica,just to see them vanish. What did you do, block your ears and listen to Tony?
Say thank GOD for Lennox stopping him in his tracks, he even accused Lennox of being bought by Skerrit! Now you acting like Lennox is some deal to tarnish Dominica. He was right to send the blackmail email to this editor to publish. The world needs to know what this man is about.
Lennox is always in the business of “releasing” emails obtained through suspicious means on Q95 and taking great pleasure in showing himself as the master of catching Skerro and his boys off guard, remember the disclosure of the election date etc, etc. Did he do the same with this email on Q95 or is this the first time Dominicans are learning about it? If it is the first time, I wonder why.
Corruption in any form is wrong, including hacking into the email accounts of individuals. It is also corrupt to accept emails from others knowing that these emails were obtained illegally!!!
Stale news brother man.He didnt get a cent! Skerrit not that gullible and dotish!
Well Brenda Rose going to give u blows on here today.
why can’t you guys get serious for once.This is your country you are talking about and your future. gosh
IF that is true…
then we are in a serious mess. If that is true then our government officials are a corrupt of incompetent, blundering, dishonest thieves.
IF that is true.
read the article over again i think u missed the point.
AMEN @Me
I think you need to reread the article five (5) times so you can undertand what is said there. Then you will comment otherwise and notsay what you just said.
Oh what a world we live in when men do desperate things.. Father have mercy upon us. You are so merciful and also what a gullible people we are and always look for the “evil and slanderous” to bring down our bros and sis. Lord again I beg you have mercy upon us. When will we look for the good in others and promote it????
This article leaves more questions than answers so I would not say anyone is “gullible” or looking to promote slander for asking, “IF that is true”. The best thing to do is to try to get answers. Using God’s name in vain is not the way forward.
wow