Renu­ka Singh

The e-mails that trig­gered the 15 month long E-mail­gate scan­dal are fake. At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan yes­ter­day pro­duced con­fir­ma­tion from Google Inc in­val­i­dat­ing the e-mails read out in Par­lia­ment by Op­po­si­tion leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley in May last year.Ram­lo­gan was ac­com­pa­nied by his lawyer, Se­nior Coun­sel Pamela El­der and his US-based coun­sel, part­ner at Com­put­er­law Group LLP Chris Sar­gent, on Skype, who ex­plained the le­gal pro­ce­dure that led to that de­ter­mi­na­tion.

Sar­gent al­so said that a "no­tice of pen­den­cy of oth­er ac­tion or pro­ceed­ing" was filed in the same Cal­i­for­nia court yes­ter­day to block the cur­rent In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion le­gal ac­tion against Google as it would be a du­pli­ca­tion of the ef­forts and would pro­vide the same in­for­ma­tion that is al­ready in hand.The three spoke with the me­dia at the AG's of­fice on St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain.

Sar­gent said the no­tice was elec­tron­i­cal­ly filed yes­ter­day and in­forms the court that the in­for­ma­tion be­ing sought by the com­mis­sion from Google has al­ready been pro­vid­ed.Ram­lo­gan said this was just one of the many fouled Row­ley-dri­ven con­spir­a­cies against him.

"It is my in­ten­tion to sue Dr Row­ley for ma­li­cious defama­tion of char­ac­ter," Ram­lo­gan said, adding that he would al­so ad­vise Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar and the oth­er min­is­ters men­tioned in the e-mails to do the same.

He said though Row­ley first men­tioned the mat­ter in Par­lia­ment, where he is pro­tect­ed by par­lia­men­tary priv­i­lege, he re­peat­ed the e-mails on plat­forms in the pub­lic do­main.

"I do not buy for one mo­ment that he got them in his let­ter­box," Ram­lo­gan said."It has been a long jour­ney with a cloud of sus­pi­cion un­nec­es­sar­i­ly lurk­ing and hang­ing over my head. But I am very hap­py that this rev­e­la­tion and vin­di­ca­tion has come."

Ram­lo­gan de­scribed the past 15 months as a "try­ing time," say­ing it was the first time he was ever ac­cused of any crim­i­nal wrong­do­ing.El­der de­scribed the e-mails as "forged" and "di­a­bol­i­cal."

"The essence of those doc­u­ments, the meat of it, is that those doc­u­ments which were passed off, which were laid in the House by the Ho­n­ourable Leader of the Op­po­si­tion, they are not au­then­tic," she said.

"Not on­ly are they not au­then­tic, they did not em­anate from the e-mail ac­count of the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter of T&T and the Ho­n­ourable At­tor­ney Gen­er­al," El­der said.She said they had been say­ing from in­cep­tion that the first course of ac­tion should be to ac­cess the servers and not the pri­vate com­put­ers of the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al or the oth­er min­is­ters.

"I would be im­me­di­ate­ly writ­ing to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion and the Di­rec­tor of Pub­lic Pros­e­cu­tions to do all that is nec­es­sary to un­earth the co-con­spir­a­tors to this evil plot," she said.

El­der said she would send a copy of the Google doc­u­ments to Row­ley."That is the prop­er thing to do, let him read for him­self, and we await his re­sponse," she said.

Sar­gent said the no­tice to block the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion was sent to its US-based lawyers and the judge re­spon­si­ble for the case.That no­tice to the Cal­i­for­nia court, which Ram­lo­gan pro­vid­ed, says Ram­lo­gan's query to Google was more de­tailed and re­quest­ed more in­for­ma­tion on the e-mails than that of the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion.

"The In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion, which seeks sim­i­lar dis­cov­ery re­lat­ed to its in­ves­ti­ga­tion of Mr Ram­lo­gan and Mrs Per­sad-Bisses­sar, has on­ly now em­barked up­on this process," that doc­u­ment states.

Google con­firms: E-mails not lo­cat­ed

Google's re­sponse, signed by its Cus­to­di­an of Records, Chi Nguyen, stat­ed that the e-mail ad­dress anand@tstt.net.tt was an ac­tive ac­count but that Google was "un­able to lo­cate records show­ing e-mails re­ceived from or sent to the ac­counts."

"Google cer­ti­fies that it has lo­cat­ed no e-mails sent to or from the Google apps ac­count anand@tstt.net.tt to or from the gmail ac­count kam­lapb1@gmail.com on Sep­tem­ber 2012," the doc­u­ment not­ed.

That doc­u­ment al­so shows that Ram­lo­gan lever­aged on Google on Au­gust 26, 2013 "seek­ing in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to a se­ries of al­leged e-mail ac­counts and e-mails al­leged­ly sent from and to those ac­counts."

When Ram­lo­gan was asked why he chose not to di­vulge that in­for­ma­tion then, El­der said it was she who in­struct­ed him to re­main qui­et on the is­sue up un­til now.

Google, ac­cord­ing to the doc­u­ment, searched all the e-mails re­lat­ing to the Prime Min­is­ter and Ram­lo­gan men­tioned that Row­ley read out in May 2013 as part of his mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against the Prime Min­is­ter. The search in­clud­ed anan@gmail.com, anand@tstt.net.tt, anan@gmail.com@gmail.com, kam­lapb1@gmail.comg­mail.com, and kam­lapb1@gmail.com.

In a text ex­change with the T&TGuardian yes­ter­day, Dr Kei­th Row­ley said he has "no in­ter­est in the pri­vate af­fairs of Mr Ram­lo­gan."

"To the best of my knowl­edge when the in­for­ma­tion was in­tro­duced in the Par­lia­ment there was a re­quest for an in­ves­ti­ga­tion. It has since been re­vealed that there was a po­lice in­ves­ti­ga­tion for over a year and more re­cent­ly an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion. These are the State's ef­forts. I will be guid­ed by that," Row­ley said.

Com­mis­sion chair­man:No com­ment

In a brief in­ter­view with the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day, In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion chair­man Ken Gor­don said he would not be able to com­ment un­til he saw the doc­u­ments.

"This is the first I am hear­ing of it. I have to see the doc­u­ments be­fore I make a com­ment," Gor­don said.When asked whether the T&T Guardian could have them de­liv­ered to him, he de­clined."I am sor­ry, I am un­avail­able to­day," he said.

flash­back

On May 19, 2013 Dr Row­ley filed a mo­tion of no con­fi­dence against the Prime Min­is­ter, read­ing a se­ries of damn­ing e-mails that he claimed had been dropped in his mail­box. The e-mails im­pli­cat­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al and Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter in sev­er­al con­spir­a­cies and cov­er-ups against the DPP, a plot to harm a jour­nal­ist and pay­ments to an un­named per­son.

The al­leged e-mail thread in­clud­ed the Prime Min­is­ter, the At­tor­ney Gen­er­al, cur­rent Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Gary Grif­fith, Lo­cal Gov­ern­ment Min­is­ter Dr Su­ru­jrat­tan Ram­bachan and Hous­ing Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal

Per­sad-Bisses­sar and Ram­lo­gan ad­mit­ted to own­ing each of the e-mail ad­dress­es but de­nied ever be­ing in­volved in any con­spir­a­cy. They al­so de­nied any knowl­edge of the e-mails. Per­sad-Bisses­sar re­ferred the mat­ter im­me­di­ate­ly to the act­ing Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice, who then as­signed deputy com­mis­sion­er of po­lice Mervyn Richard­son to the case.

In the months that fol­lowed the case dom­i­nat­ed the me­dia, even­tu­al­ly fad­ing un­til the In­tegri­ty Com­mis­sion by-passed the lo­cal Cen­tral Au­thor­i­ty and se­cured a US-based at­tor­ney to sue Google for the in­for­ma­tion ear­li­er this month.