KSA settles defamation suit
Case dismissed without costs to either party.
By Matt DiMera
[news editor]
The Kwantlen Student Association (KSA) has dropped its defamation lawsuit against Simon Fraser University’s student newspaper, the Peak.
A consent order was filed in the B.C. Supreme Court Jan. 19, dismissing the case without costs to either party.
“The long ordeal of the Peak and its journalists has come to a rapid and appropriate end, case dismissed,” wrote Sam Reynolds of the Peak Publications Society in a Jan. 29 emailed statement.
“Those journalists had reported to SFU students (primarily) about governance issues at KSA, and got sued for their trouble in a lawsuit funded by KSA funds. It falls in the category: no good deed goes unpunished!”
The original civil claim was filed in October, 2011 on behalf of the KSA and now-impeached president Harman “Sean Birdman” Bassi, alleging that the Peak had “falsely and maliciously printed” defamatory statements about them “with the intent of increasing sales of the Peak newspaper” and to increase the prominence and further the career of reporter Sam Reynolds.
Among the suit’s claims was that the newspaper had falsely alleged that Bassi “channels Moammar Gadhafi.”
