Richard Lord

At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says he has no in­ten­tion of step­ping down while the po­lice in­ves­ti­gate the e-mail scan­dal raised in Par­lia­ment this week by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

He al­so said the on­ly law­ful au­thor­i­ty to in­ves­ti­gate the com­mis­sion of a crim­i­nal of­fence was the Po­lice Ser­vice.

"My back strong. I know what I have to do, how I do it and be­cause I know why I do it," he said at yes­ter­day' post-Cab­i­net press brief­ing.

There have been sev­er­al calls for Ram­lo­gan to step aside while the po­lice probe the mat­ter.

DCP Mervyn Richard­son is head­ing a six-man in­ves­tiga­tive team, but Row­ley has said he has no con­fi­dence in Richard­son and prefers an in­de­pen­dent unit.

Yes­ter­day, in re­sponse to calls for him to step aside, Ram­lo­gan said he was "quite hap­py to re­main where I am...an in­ves­ti­ga­tion will take place. I don't care who in­ves­ti­gates it...it could be God, it will not change the fact that what he (Row­ley) read in Par­lia­ment was not an e-mail thread."

He added: "It is bo­gus, fic­ti­tious and a com­plete fab­ri­ca­tion that was de­signed to dri­ve a wedge be­tween the Gov­ern­ment, the DPP, the Chief Jus­tice and to as­sas­si­nate the char­ac­ter of the PM and the AG."

The e-mails pre­sent­ed by Row­ley were pur­port­ed to have come from ad­dress­es be­long­ing to se­nior gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials, in­clud­ing Per­sad-Bisses­sar, Ram­lo­gan and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment and Works Min­is­ter Su­ruj Ram­bachan. They have all de­nied any knowl­edge of the e-mails, which dis­cussed tam­per­ing with the ju­di­cia­ry and a T&T Guardian jour­nal­ist who broke the Sec­tion 34 sto­ry last Sep­tem­ber.

Ram­lo­gan said the com­mis­sion can on­ly in­ves­ti­gate vi­o­la­tions of the In­tegri­ty in Pub­lic Life Act and its ju­ris­dic­tion did not ex­tend be­yond that.

"They can't in­ves­ti­gate the pos­si­ble com­mis­sion of crim­i­nal of­fences in gen­er­al or a con­spir­a­cy to com­mit a crime...Those things fall un­der the ju­ris­dic­tion of the Po­lice Ser­vice," he said.

He said Row­ley was seek­ing to de­mor­alise the po­lice and that was most un­for­tu­nate. He point­ed out the of­fi­cers prob­ing the mat­ter could re­quest spe­cial­ist in­ves­ti­ga­tors to as­sist them.

Ram­lo­gan said one al­so had to be care­ful that the "on­ly legal­ly con­sti­tut­ed en­ti­ty to con­duct such in­ves­ti­ga­tions" was not un­der­mined in the process. While ad­mit­ting no ex­ter­nal agency could in­ves­ti­gate a crim­i­nal of­fence in this coun­try, Ram­lo­gan said the CoP could au­tho­rise a for­eign ex­pert to as­sist with­out Cab­i­net's ap­proval.