ST JOHN’S, Antigua — Prime Minister Lester Bird has threatened to sue the Daily Observer for libel over an article in the Tuesday’s edition of the paper if it fails to retract the story and apologise, in the latest public controversy between the Antiguan leader and the Observer Group, which owns the Daily Observer and Radio Observer.

Winston Derrick, managing editor of the Antiguan daily told the Jamaica Observer, in a telephone interview yesterday, that he has referred the matter to the company’s lawyers, but said there was “nothing to apologise for” based on the article published.

At the centre of the latest row — one of a series between the Bird administration and the Observer Group, a strong and consistent opponent of the Antigua Labour Party government — is the circulation of a videotape alleging a drug-related involvement by the prime minister and a young girl, 14 years, who is said to be under a US government witness protection programme, according to the Observer.

One of the interviewers on the tape, said Bird, was Barbados-born journalist, Julius Gittens, who recently had to leave Antigua and Barbuda following a work permit controversy.

Gittens, formerly employed by Observer Radio, has admitted knowledge of the editing of the tape but has distanced himself from having anything to do with its circulation and said he had advised against it while still in the employment of the station.

Bird, who referred to Gittens’ response in a press release on Tuesday night, has denounced the videotape as a malicious smear campaign; claimed the girl was “unstable” and was being used by the Observer Group consistent with its opposition to his party and government.

He also said that the article in the Observer was an extension of the videotape and a personal campaign against his character and has instructed his lawyers to give the paper until Friday to retract the relevant story and apologise or face a libel suit.

Bird also said that he had instructed the Head of the Office of National Drug Control and Money Laundering Policy, Wrenford Ferrance, as well as the country’s police commissioner to carry out thorough investigations into the allegations as they relate to him and others in connection with the videotape and the newspaper article “without fear or favour”.

However, Derrick said that his newspaper had called for the prime minister to “step down” from office, pending an “independent investigation” that must be carried out by a foreign team such as the US Federal Investigation Bureau (FBI), Britain’s Scotland Yard or the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

Bird said that he has also alerted the relevant US authorities about this “most reprehensible and scandalous matter” and that he has “absolutely nothing to fear from investigation from any quarter. For now there must be an unequivocal apology.”

But the editor of the Antiguan newspaper insisted that no apologies would be forthcoming until “all relevant and appropriate investigations have taken place and we have been advised by our lawyers on the next move”.