The Po­lice Ser­vice is yet to reach a com­pro­mise with the Prime Min­is­ter and the gov­ern­ment min­is­ters at the cen­tre of the Sec­tion 34 e-mail con­tro­ver­sy re­gard­ing the sur­ren­der of their cell­phones and elec­tron­ic de­vices to in­ves­ti­ga­tors.How­ev­er, in a brief tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, lead in­ves­ti­ga­tor DCP Mervyn Richard­son said the par­ties were in com­mu­ni­ca­tion in the hope that an agree­ment would be ar­rived at soon."We are speak­ing at this time. The par­ties are in con­stant com­mu­ni­ca­tion," Richard­son said yes­ter­day.He not­ed, how­ev­er, that the in­spec­tion of the min­is­ters' de­vices was on­ly one facet of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion and they (the in­ves­ti­ga­tors) were pro­ceed­ing at full speed with the oth­er as­pects of the probe."You do not even need to ask if this is de­lay­ing the in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion is con­tin­u­ing at full speed," Richard­son said.

In an in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian on Tues­day, Richard­son said in­ves­ti­ga­tors were con­tin­u­ing to in­ter­view peo­ple and were still await­ing re­spons­es from in­ter­na­tion­al com­pa­nies Google and Black­Ber­ry.He said in­ves­ti­ga­tors hoped to com­plete the in­ves­ti­ga­tion in the quick­est pos­si­ble time, but did not give a date for com­ple­tion."We can­not say whether it would be in the next two weeks or next month. We are work­ing hard and try­ing our best to bring this to a close," Richard­son said.The is­sue of the sur­ren­der of the de­vices first arose in late June, when Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Works and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Dr Su­ruj Ram­bachan went to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain to hand in their elec­tron­ic de­vices to al­low the in­ves­ti­ga­tors to view the de­vices.

How­ev­er, the trio sub­se­quent­ly re­fused to do so, say­ing they were not hap­py that the of­fi­cers had prop­er pro­to­cols in place to pro­tect the in­for­ma­tion on the de­vices.The min­is­ters said their de­vices con­tained sen­si­tive in­for­ma­tion, both per­son­al and pro­fes­sion­al, which could be pos­si­bly leaked. But they agreed to sur­ren­der the de­vices pro­vid­ed that they would be analysed on­ly by a rep­utable in­ter­na­tion­al IT ex­pert."I have no dif­fi­cul­ty [with] an in­ter­na­tion­al IT ex­pert, whose cred­i­bil­i­ty and rep­u­ta­tion are be­yond re­proach and ques­tion, go­ing through my stuff," Ram­lo­gan was quot­ed as say­ing.Even­tu­al­ly, on­ly Gary Grif­fith, the PM's na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er, hand­ed in his elec­tron­ic de­vices to the of­fi­cers.

On May 20, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley read out 31 e-mails which were al­leged to have come from ad­dress­es be­long­ing to Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ram­lo­gan and Ram­bachan.The e-mail thread al­so pur­port­ed to in­clude com­mu­ni­ca­tion to Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal and Grif­fith.The e-mails con­cerned an al­leged plot among se­nior gov­ern­ment min­is­ters to tap the phone of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the in­tim­i­da­tion of the T&T Guardian jour­nal­ist who broke the sto­ry of the ear­ly procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Of­fences) Act.Per­sad-Bisses­sar and her min­is­ters have de­nied knowl­edge of th e-mails and have dis­missed them as be­ing fake.