Irv­ing Ward

Deputy Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Joan Hon­ore-Paul last night slammed Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar for her sug­ges­tion that she and her col­leagues should be cleared in the Email­gate probe, say­ing the po­lice were far from done with their in­ves­ti­ga­tions and the case was still wide open.

She al­so chas­tised Per­sad-Bisses­sar for re­leas­ing con­tents of re­ports pro­vid­ed to the po­lice from the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice, say­ing that the treaty un­der which this in­for­ma­tion was pro­vid­ed pro­hib­it­ed any­one else oth­er than the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty par­ties prob­ing the mat­ter to use it.

Hon­ore-Paul's com­ment comes days af­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar and mem­bers of her par­ty at­tacked Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley over the Email­gate mat­ter in the wake of his sus­pen­sion from Par­lia­ment last week. The Gov­ern­ment used some of the in­for­ma­tion from the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice re­port dur­ing the de­bate of cen­sure against Row­ley.

Us­ing so­cial me­dia ear­li­er this week, Per­sad-Bisses­sar had al­so tak­en Row­ley to task af­ter her US-based lawyer, Jack Rus­so, sug­gest­ed that both she and for­mer at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan had been cleared af­ter Google Inc had pro­vid­ed in­for­ma­tion which sug­gest­ed there was no match for any of the emails pre­sent­ed in the doc­u­ments by Row­ley in the House in 2013.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar had al­so called on the po­lice to ex­pe­dite the mat­ter, not­ing that her Gov­ern­ment should not be fac­ing the spec­tre of such an al­le­ga­tion head­ing in­to a gen­er­al elec­tion.

But deal­ing specif­i­cal­ly with the is­sue of whether the case was close to an end, Hon­ore-Paul said, "This in­ves­ti­ga­tion re­lates not on­ly to whether the emails were in fact sent in Sep­tem­ber 2012 but al­so whether there may have been acts by par­tic­u­lar per­sons which amount to mis­con­duct in pub­lic of­fice."The in­ves­ti­ga­tion nec­es­sar­i­ly in­cludes an ex­am­i­na­tion of events out­side of the four cor­ners of the pur­port­ed email cor­re­spon­dence, since these may have the po­ten­tial to con­firm or re­fute the dis­put­ed email com­mu­ni­ca­tions."

Re­quest for help

She said the po­lice team start­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tions af­ter the pur­port­ed emails were for­ward­ed by the PM to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams in 2013 for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.She said since then the po­lice had re­quest­ed help, through the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, from the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice and it was fa­cil­i­tat­ed be­cause the re­quest was sup­port­ed by "ev­i­dence which met the re­quired lev­el of 'prob­a­ble cause.'

She said the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice act­ing on the re­quest served a war­rant on cer­tain ser­vice providers in the US, among them Google Inc, and sub­se­quent­ly for­ward­ed that in­for­ma­tion to the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, which in turn passed it to DCP Glen Hack­ett, who is head­ing the lo­cal probe.

She said, "While it is true, that af­ter re­ceipt of the in­for­ma­tion from the De­part­ment of Jus­tice, the po­lice team led by Su­per­in­ten­dent Baldeo Nanan did send a re­port to Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Glen Hack­ett, it is not true that such re­port cleared Mr Anand Ram­lo­gan and Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in re­spect of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

She added, "The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice's re­sponse did not treat with all the mat­ters re­quest­ed by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and fur­ther, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice is yet to re­lay any in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the Hot­mail ac­counts "cap­tain­gary­grif­fith@hot­mail.com" and "su­ru­jram­bachan@hot­mail.com.

"They have in­di­cat­ed that such in­for­ma­tion will be sent as soon as pos­si­ble. Quite prop­er­ly, there was ab­solute­ly no find­ing made by the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice nor was any dis­closed in writ­ten cor­re­spon­dence. The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice was con­cerned on­ly with re­lay­ing the da­ta or in­for­ma­tion that was re­ceived by virtue of the above-men­tioned war­rant. This is its le­gal re­mit."

She con­clud­ed that any at­tempt to give the "im­pres­sion that there has been some fi­nal­i­ty in this re­gard is mis­lead­ing."

Nat­ur­al jus­tice

Deal­ing with the re­lease of the in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main, Hon­ore-Paul said she had not­ed sev­er­al me­dia ar­ti­cles which quot­ed from var­i­ous doc­u­ment pro­vid­ed by the US State De­part­ment to the lo­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tors.How­ev­er, she cau­tioned, "Any par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tion by in­ter­est­ed par­ties and the pub­lic air­ing of the sup­posed re­sults are pal­pa­bly self-serv­ing and bring to mind the need for the le­gal max­im, "no man should be a judge in his own cause."

"This is a bedrock prin­ci­ple of nat­ur­al jus­tice, the rule of law and due process. It ex­ists to en­sure im­par­tial­i­ty by the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of po­ten­tial­ly bi­ased or in­ter­est­ed par­ties in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions.

"Fur­ther, notwith­stand­ing the fact that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has the in­sti­tu­tion­al strength and his­to­ry to with­stand pres­sure from what­ev­er source, the pub­li­ca­tion of this in­for­ma­tion de­rived from pri­vate sources, has the po­ten­tial to in­ter­fere with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­ing con­duct­ed by in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial bod­ies, such as the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice. More­over, it has the po­ten­tial to in­ter­fere with the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the sound­ness of these in­ves­ti­ga­tions."

She al­so said the use of the in­for­ma­tion in the "pub­lic are­na with­out the per­mis­sion of one's in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner is es­pe­cial­ly dis­turb­ing and dan­ger­ous, since such ac­tion vi­o­lates what is ex­pect­ed by way of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and more par­tic­u­lar­ly, it at­tracts ques­tions marks as to our abil­i­ty to ho­n­our our in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal oblig­a­tions, thus po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­enc­ing, neg­a­tive­ly, the out­come of fu­ture re­quests by Trinidad and To­ba­go for Mu­tu­al Le­gal As­sis­tance."

About Email­gate

On May 20, 2013, Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley pre­sent­ed to Par­lia­ment a thread of 31 email mes­sages pur­port­ing to be a con­ver­sa­tion be­tween four peo­ple whose email ac­counts bore close re­sem­blance to that of Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, then at­tor­ney gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, for­mer na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith and Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan.

The con­ver­sa­tion be­tween the par­ties sur­round­ed the pub­li­ca­tion of a sto­ry in the T&T Guardian news­pa­per about the procla­ma­tion of Sec­tion 34 of the Ad­min­is­tra­tion of Jus­tice (In­dictable Of­fences) Amend­ment Act and a con­spir­a­cy to mur­der the re­porter purs­ing the sto­ry.

Sec­tion 34 was pro­claimed on Au­gust 31, 2012 and was viewed as leg­is­la­tion spe­cial­ly craft­ed to ben­e­fit Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress fi­nanciers Ish­war Gal­barans­ingh and Steve Fer­gu­son, who were charged with a se­ries of crim­i­nal of­fences re­lat­ing to the Pi­ar­co Air­port De­vel­op­ment Project.

The con­ver­sa­tion in the emails al­so made sug­ges­tions of spy­ing on Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions Roger Gas­pard and an at­tempt to re­move him from of­fice by of­fer­ing him the po­si­tion as a High Court judge.

Since then, Sec­tion 34 was re­pealed by an emer­gency ses­sion of Par­lia­ment. Two par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tions were com­menced - one by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and an­oth­er by the po­lice ser­vice. Both are in­com­plete.DPP Roger Gas­pard al­so re­cused him­self from over­see­ing the mat­ter as he was named in the emails.

Hot­mail ac­counts out­stand­ing

Deputy DPP Hon­ore-Paul said the po­lice team start­ed its in­ves­ti­ga­tions af­ter the pur­port­ed emails were for­ward­ed by the PM to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams in 2013 for in­ves­ti­ga­tion.She said since then the po­lice had re­quest­ed help, through the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, from the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice and it was fa­cil­i­tat­ed be­cause the re­quest was sup­port­ed by "ev­i­dence which met the re­quired lev­el of 'prob­a­ble cause.'

She said the US De­part­ment of Jus­tice act­ing on the re­quest served a war­rant on cer­tain ser­vice providers in the US, among them Google Inc, and sub­se­quent­ly for­ward­ed that in­for­ma­tion to the Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty, which in turn passed it to DCP Glen Hack­ett, who is head­ing the lo­cal probe.

She said, "While it is true, that af­ter re­ceipt of the in­for­ma­tion from the De­part­ment of Jus­tice, the po­lice team led by Su­per­in­ten­dent Baldeo Nanan did send a re­port to Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Glen Hack­ett, it is not true that such re­port cleared Mr Anand Ram­lo­gan and Mrs Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar in re­spect of this in­ves­ti­ga­tion."

She added, "The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice's re­sponse did not treat with all the mat­ters re­quest­ed by the in­ves­tiga­tive team and fur­ther, the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice is yet to re­lay any in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the Hot­mail ac­counts "cap­tain­gary­grif­fith@hot­mail.com" and "su­ru­jram­bachan@hot­mail.com.

"They have in­di­cat­ed that such in­for­ma­tion will be sent as soon as pos­si­ble. Quite prop­er­ly, there was ab­solute­ly no find­ing made by the Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice nor was any dis­closed in writ­ten cor­re­spon­dence. The Unit­ed States De­part­ment of Jus­tice was con­cerned on­ly with re­lay­ing the da­ta or in­for­ma­tion that was re­ceived by virtue of the above-men­tioned war­rant. This is its le­gal re­mit."

She con­clud­ed that any at­tempt to give the "im­pres­sion that there has been some fi­nal­i­ty in this re­gard is mis­lead­ing."Deal­ing with the re­lease of the in­for­ma­tion in the pub­lic do­main, Hon­ore-Paul said she had not­ed sev­er­al me­dia ar­ti­cles which quot­ed from var­i­ous doc­u­ment pro­vid­ed by the US State De­part­ment to the lo­cal in­ves­ti­ga­tors.

How­ev­er, she cau­tioned, "Any par­al­lel in­ves­ti­ga­tion by in­ter­est­ed par­ties and the pub­lic air­ing of the sup­posed re­sults are pal­pa­bly self-serv­ing and bring to mind the need for the le­gal max­im, "no man should be a judge in his own cause."

"This is a bedrock prin­ci­ple of nat­ur­al jus­tice, the rule of law and due process. It ex­ists to en­sure im­par­tial­i­ty by the dis­qual­i­fi­ca­tion of po­ten­tial­ly bi­ased or in­ter­est­ed par­ties in the in­ves­ti­ga­tions."Fur­ther, notwith­stand­ing the fact that the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice has the in­sti­tu­tion­al strength and his­to­ry to with­stand pres­sure from what­ev­er source, the pub­li­ca­tion of this in­for­ma­tion de­rived from pri­vate sources, has the po­ten­tial to in­ter­fere with the in­ves­ti­ga­tions be­ing con­duct­ed by in­de­pen­dent and im­par­tial bod­ies, such as the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the T&T Po­lice Ser­vice.

More­over, it has the po­ten­tial to in­ter­fere with the pub­lic per­cep­tion of the sound­ness of these in­ves­ti­ga­tions."

She al­so said the use of the in­for­ma­tion in the "pub­lic are­na with­out the per­mis­sion of one's in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner is es­pe­cial­ly dis­turb­ing and dan­ger­ous, since such ac­tion vi­o­lates what is ex­pect­ed by way of in­ter­na­tion­al co­op­er­a­tion and more par­tic­u­lar­ly, it at­tracts ques­tions marks as to our abil­i­ty to ho­n­our our in­ter­na­tion­al le­gal oblig­a­tions, thus po­ten­tial­ly in­flu­enc­ing, neg­a­tive­ly, the out­come of fu­ture re­quests by Trinidad and To­ba­go for Mu­tu­al Le­gal As­sis­tance."