Michelle Loubon

Francesca Hawkins, sec­re­tary of the Me­dia As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go (MATT), says the threat­en­ing e-mails al­leged­ly sent to Ex­press Ed­i­tor-in-Chief (Omatie Ly­der) and re­porter An­na Ram­dass com­pro­mise Prime Min­is­ter Per­sad-Bisses­sar's of­fice and the de­fence of the press as en­shrined in the con­sti­tu­tion of T&T.She was re­spond­ing to the po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion which un­earthed the threat­en­ing e-mails which were sent to Ly­der and Ex­press re­porter An­na Ram­dass by some­one adopt­ing the alias "Jan­ice Thomas" in con­nec­tion with the Resh­mi Usha Ram­nar­ine sto­ry be­ing in­ves­ti­gat­ed by the Ex­press.

Hawkins said: "We view with great con­cern a dig­i­tal trace has been con­nect­ed to a com­put­er in the home of a se­nior gov­ern­ment ad­vis­er and a for­mer se­nior jour­nal­ist. We feel this com­pro­mis­es the PM's of­fice and the de­fence of the press as en­shrined in the con­sti­tu­tion of T&T."Hawkins al­so said MATT com­mends the cy­ber crime unit for its se­ri­ous ap­proach to the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"We view it as an on­go­ing in­ves­ti­ga­tion and feel a prompt re­sponse from Gov­ern­ment would be ap­pro­pri­ate at this time. We await fur­ther de­vel­op­ments," added Hawkins.On Feb­ru­ary 1, MATT is­sued its first press re­lease on this mat­ter.MATT said: "Jour­nal­ists have a du­ty to re­port in the pub­lic in­ter­est, facts whose rev­e­la­tion may some­times cause dis­tress to cer­tain sec­tors or in­di­vid­u­als."MATT Pres­i­dent Ker­ry Pe­ters is abroad.

Pan­tin: I got hate mails, too

Mean­while an­oth­er mem­ber of the me­dia fra­ter­ni­ty-re­tired Ex­press colum­nist and se­nior jour­nal­ist Raoul Pan­tin claimed that he re­ceived hate e-mail from Mo­hammed, pos­ing un­der the alias Jan­ice Thomas. In a me­dia re­port, he re­ferred to her scathing com­ments to him (and oth­ers) as "ma­li­cious" and has said Per­sad-Bisses­sar should "fire her, im­me­di­ate­ly" since her "cred­i­bil­i­ty is ze­ro".

Ram­lo­gan: The law pro­vides re­course

In­ter­viewed yes­ter­day, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan said: "The use or mis­use of the In­ter­net by a se­nior em­ploy­ee in her pri­vate ca­pac­i­ty is a mat­ter over which no em­ploy­er has any con­trol."It gives rise for con­cern if it touch­es and con­cerns the per­for­mance of her of­fi­cial du­ties."He al­so said the law pro­vides re­course for those af­fect­ed."It would be im­prop­er for me to make any com­ment on the ques­tion of crim­i­nal ac­tion be­cause that is a mat­ter for the po­lice and the DPP."