An­na-Lisa Paul

Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (Crime) Mervyn Richard­son has been ap­point­ed to lead the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in­to the au­then­tic­i­ty of e-mails read by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley in the Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.Act­ing Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er (CoP) Stephen Williams told the T&T Guardian Richard­son was ap­point­ed yes­ter­day morn­ing, less than 24 hours af­ter the mat­ter was brought to his at­ten­tion by Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar.

Dur­ing Mon­day's de­bate on the no-con­fi­dence mo­tion brought against Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her Gov­ern­ment by the Op­po­si­tion, Row­ley al­leged there was a sin­is­ter con­spir­a­cy by key gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to deal with the fall­out from the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 34.Row­ley pro­duced a se­ries of e-mails al­leged­ly em­a­nat­ing from ad­dress­es be­long­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and oth­er cab­i­net min­is­ters re­fer­ring to the Sec­tion 34 mat­ter, which arose last Sep­tem­ber.

The e-mails al­so re­vealed al­leged plans to of­fer the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard a judge­ship, and dis­cussed the in­tim­i­da­tion of T&T Guardian re­porter Denyse Renne, who broke the sto­ry.On his way to a func­tion last evening, Williams took a few min­utes to as­sure that the mat­ter would be thor­ough­ly in­ves­ti­gat­ed."DCP Richard­son was as­signed to con­duct the in­ves­ti­ga­tion to­day (yes­ter­day)," he said.

Be­cause of the na­ture of the mat­ter and the ram­i­fi­ca­tions of the out­come of the probe, as well as the time nec­es­sary to do prop­er in­ves­ti­ga­tions, Williams said he was un­able to say when it will be con­clud­ed.How­ev­er, the act­ing CoP said: "Guid­ing him along on the im­por­tance of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, which is now in the pub­lic do­main, is the na­tion's con­cern, as every­one is look­ing for­ward to the out­come. DCP Richard­son will be treat­ing this as a pri­or­i­ty mat­ter."

Williams could not say how much as­sis­tance Richard­son would re­quire to car­ry out his in­ves­ti­ga­tions, but said: "The TTPS has com­pe­tent peo­ple through­out all as­pects of the or­gan­i­sa­tion, in­clud­ing cy­ber crime. DCP Richard­son is high­ly trained, and at the FBI lev­el as well."Williams said Richard­son was free to choose of­fi­cers to as­sist from wher­ev­er he felt nec­es­sary.