An­na-Lisa Paul

Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley will be the first per­son to be in­ter­viewed by po­lice as­signed to probe his al­le­ga­tions of wrong­do­ing by top gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in the e-mail scan­dal he raised in Par­lia­ment on Mon­day.Al­though he did not want to con­firm or de­ny that Row­ley would be the first in­ter­vie­wee, Deputy Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Mervyn Richard­son said yes­ter­day it was like­ly an in­ter­view would take place soon.

Dur­ing Par­lia­ment on Mon­day Row­ley read from e-mails which he claimed were sent from ad­dress­es owned by sev­er­al high-pro­file gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar, At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan, Works and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan and na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty ad­vis­er to the PM Gary Grif­fith.

The e-mails re­vealed al­leged plans to of­fer the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) Roger Gas­pard, SC, a judge­ship, the in­tim­i­da­tion of T&T Guardian re­porter Denyse Renne, who broke the Sec­tion 34 sto­ry, and in­ter­fer­ence in the Ju­di­cia­ry.Af­ter Row­ley not­ed the e-mails showed "high crime and con­spir­a­cy" on the Sec­tion 34 is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar wrote to act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Stephen Williams, or­der­ing him to probe the mat­ter. Williams sub­se­quent­ly ap­point­ed Richard­son to head the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

At yes­ter­day's po­lice press brief­ing at the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing, Port-of-Spain, Richard­son said they had al­ready start­ed their in­ves­ti­ga­tion."Yes, the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is in full flight. A team has been as­sem­bled and is work­ing as we speak."Richard­son said he had met with the six-man in­ves­tiga­tive team be­fore the brief­ing. The team com­pris­es mem­bers of the Homi­cide Bu­reau and Or­gan­ised Crime Nar­cotics and Firearms Bu­reau (OC­NFB), he said.

"The team is pro­gress­ing with the in­ves­ti­ga­tion un­der my di­rect su­per­vi­sion, so the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is on its way."He al­so said the Cy­ber Crimes Unit was in­volved in the probe.Pressed on whether in­ter­na­tion­al as­sis­tance would be sought, Richard­son said: "One can nev­er tell. It may be nec­es­sary to do so but at this time all the things we are do­ing are pure­ly lo­cal.

"We have as­sem­bled a team, per­sons who are there with var­i­ous skills and abil­i­ties work­ing to bring this in­ves­ti­ga­tion to a speedy con­clu­sion in the short­est pos­si­ble time."He did point out, how­ev­er, that as­sis­tance would al­so need to be sought from Google, Ya­hoo and Hot­mail to ac­cess their servers.Asked if the po­lice were ca­pa­ble of that type of in­ves­ti­ga­tion, Richard­son said: "As far as prac­ti­ca­ble, we will use the re­sources we have avail­able in­ter­nal­ly and lo­cal­ly.

"If it does not re­side here, we will see how we can im­port that but we are do­ing all that we can do as the na­tion­al Po­lice Ser­vice to deal with this prob­lem right now. The team is work­ing."He said de­spite calls for an in­de­pen­dent body to over­see the in­ves­ti­ga­tion, there were of­fi­cers in T&T ca­pa­ble of prob­ing the e-mails.

Asked about the is­sues which arose with sev­er­al cas­es which he had in­ves­ti­gat­ed, among them the Sea Lots ac­ci­dent which cost the lives of a moth­er and her two daugh­ters, and the new Fly­ing Squad mat­ter, Richard­son, who has over 40 years' ex­pe­ri­ence, asked: "Are you im­ply­ing we should im­port some­body from Cana­da?"

De­fend­ing his po­si­tion fur­ther, he added: "I am the DCP in charge of crime in T&T and I am not aware there are ques­tion marks."In all the in­ves­ti­ga­tions, they have been dealt with and for­ward­ed to the DPP and per­sons have been charged so I am not aware of any ques­tion marks or hang­over."Why should I ex­cuse my­self? Is it that every time the me­dia says some­thing about a po­lice of­fi­cer, we ex­cuse him, so who will in­ves­ti­gate?"So should we bring in peo­ple to in­ves­ti­gate. Is that what we are say­ing now?"

Told of the pub­lic's lack of con­fi­dence in the po­lice and whether it would not be bet­ter to seek in­ter­na­tion­al help, giv­en the mag­ni­tude of the al­le­ga­tions and the pos­si­ble in­volve­ment of high-rank­ing gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, he said:"I be­lieve we have the com­pe­tence. That is not to say that all com­pe­tence re­sides with­in us but I be­lieve if we find that it is be­yond us, then we will see.

"But to do that from the on­set, to me, we are tak­ing a step there, be­fore we even know what is be­fore us. We are in­ves­ti­gat­ing and we will do what­ev­er is nec­es­sary to en­sure the in­tegri­ty of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion is not com­pro­mised in any way."