Former Dominica prime minister Edison James was released on EC$50,000 bail last Friday, after spending an estimated 20 minutes in a holding cell in a magistrate’s court after he was committed to stand trial in the High Court on a charge of incitement.

He is charged with “encouraging, persuading, or instigating by words, causing persons to jeopardise the safety or endanger the public peace,” following a United Workers Party (UWP) meeting on February 7,2017, at which calls were made for the resignation of Prime Minister Roosevelt Skerrit.

James, 80, who served as prime minister between 1995-2000, has been at the centre of the alleged incitement case that also includes former opposition leader Lennox Linton and the current UWP leader and economist, Dr Thomson Fontaine.

Magistrate Michael Laudat dismissed a no-case submission that had been filed on behalf of James.

The prosecution in the cases against the opposition politicians are led by the Trinidad-based criminal attorneys Israel Khan and Keith Scotland.