Geisha Kow­lessar

While Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar hand­ed over her lap­top and the cen­tral pro­cess­ing unit (CPU) of a com­put­er to the po­lice yes­ter­day as part of the on­goinge-mail probe, two oth­er Cab­i­net mem­bers have opt­ed not to.At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan and Min­is­ter of Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan, who al­so went to the Po­lice Ad­min­is­tra­tion Build­ing in Port-of-Spain yes­ter­day with their elec­tron­ic de­vices, de­clined to hand them over, say­ing they feared a breach of their con­sti­tu­tion­al right to pri­va­cy.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­mained mum on the in­ves­ti­ga­tion af­ter her in­ter­view with the in­ves­ti­gat­ing of­fi­cers.The e-mails, which were pre­sent­ed in Par­lia­ment on May 20 by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley, al­leged ef­forts to un­der­mine the ju­di­cia­ry, the of­fice of the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions (DPP) and the me­dia. The PM and her col­leagues have de­nied any knowl­edge of the e-mails and claimed they were fab­ri­cat­ed.

Ac­com­pa­nied by her at­tor­ney Is­rael Khan, SC, Hous­ing Min­is­ter Roodal Mooni­lal and US-based foren­sic ex­pert Jon Berry­hill,the Prime Min­is­ter ar­rived at2.02 pm yes­ter­day.Berry­hill, who was hired by Khan, sub­mit­ted a ten-page re­port which said there was no proof the e-mails were re­al.

The blar­ing sirens of the PM's se­cu­ri­ty de­tail caused a stir on Ed­ward Street as Per­sad-Bisses­sar got out of her car and went in­side, af­ter be­ing greet­ed by Deputy Po­lice Com­mis­sion­er Mervyn Richard­son and sev­er­al oth­er of­fi­cers on the front steps.Her ad­vis­er, Bar­ry Padarath, car­ried a card­board box con­tain­ing the lap­top and CPU, which were lat­er ex­am­ined by the po­lice.Mem­bers of the me­dia were ini­tial­ly told Per­sad-Bisses­sar would ar­rive for 10 am, but then that her vis­it would be at 2 pm.

Af­ter they had wait­ed for near­ly two and a half hours in the hot sun, Per­sad-Bisses­sar ad­dressed the me­dia for one minute and 26 sec­onds.De­scrib­ing the dis­cus­sion as "fruit­ful," the Prime Min­is­ter added: "As you know this mat­ter is an on­go­ing po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion and there­fore it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate for me to com­ment on it at this time. The in­ves­ti­ga­tion con­tin­ues."Asked what items she had brought to be ex­am­ined, Per­sad-Bisses­sar again re­fused to com­ment and in­sist­ed it would be in­ap­pro­pri­ate.

Pressed on whether there was any­thing she could tell the pub­lic, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Have a great day. I am head­ing down to Rien­zi (Com­plex). I have an ex­ec­u­tive meet­ing and we will be­gin screen­ing of the can­di­dates for Ch­agua­nas West."

Con­cerns to be ironed out–lawyers

Ram­lo­gan and Ram­bachan were ac­com­pa­nied by their at­tor­neys, Pamela El­der, SC, and for­mer High Court judge Lar­ry Lal­la.They ar­rived at the ad­min­is­tra­tion build­ing at 10 am and were pro­vid­ed with spe­cial park­ing arrange­ments.Ram­lo­gan and Ram­bachan, who walked with their elec­tron­ic de­vices, met with Richard­son and ten oth­er of­fi­cers for al­most three hours. How­ev­er, they left with their items.

El­der said the dis­cus­sion was "frank and mean­ing­ful" but said con­cerns were ex­pressed to the po­lice about cer­tain rights."We ex­pressed cer­tain con­cerns of our clients' pro­tec­tion of con­sti­tu­tion­al rights to pri­va­cy," she said."We al­so ex­pressed con­cerns of con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of dig­i­tal ev­i­dence not be­ing com­pro­mised by any in­ad­ver­tence or any al­ter­ations which may ul­ti­mate­ly af­fect the con­clu­sion of the in­ves­ti­ga­tion.

"In essence, we want­ed to be cer­tain that the nec­es­sary pro­to­cols of method­ol­o­gy were in place for foren­sic ex­am­i­na­tion of dig­i­tal ma­te­r­i­al and we left with cer­tain is­sues still to be ad­dressed."Ex­press­ing con­fi­dence that the is­sues would be re­solved soon, El­der said Ram­lo­gan and Ram­bachan were will­ing to co-op­er­ate with the po­lice.