US-based e-mail service provider Google Inc's has been granted yet more time to provide information relating to the E-mailgate investigation.The Integrity Commission yesterday confirmed the California-based company had been granted a fourth extension and had given Google up until February 20, 2015 to comply with an August 14 subpoena, compelling it to provide e-mail records of Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Attorney General Anand Ramlogan for September 2012.
In its response to questions, the commission said after getting legal advice on the matter it had decided to grant the extension request.The letter is vague and does not state when this request was made or granted.This fourth extension comes even after deputy chairman at the commission, Justice Sebastain Ventour, had said previously he would not let the matter drag on if he believed Google was deliberately prolonging the process.
This is the first major statement to come from the commission since new chairman, Zainool Hosein, was installed last month.Ramlogan in a text exchange yesterday confirmed he was aware of the new extension date.He said: "You may recall that I had predicted this when I said my battle with Google lasted a year-and-a-half because of the particular legal procedures and system in the state of California.
"Google will have to jump through the same data protection and privacy laws all over again."He said he and the PM have given consent "in writing to Google and the Integrity Commission's lawyers for the "release of the requested information from our e-mail accounts."It's a waiting game but good things come to those who wait," he said.
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In May 2013, Opposition Leader Dr Keith Rowley, referred to a thread of e-mail correspondence purported to be a conversation between the Prime Minister, the Attorney General, the Minister of National Security and the Works and Infrastructure Minister plotting a criminal conspiracy to harm a journalist, spy on the Director of Public Prosecutions, and get him out of office, in the aftermath of the Section 34 proclamation, which many felt was passed to favour two government financiers charged with a series of fraud offences.
In August, Ramlogan claimed Google had verified the e-mails were fake and the documents he received from Google had effectively cleared both him and the Prime Minister of any involvement in the E-mailgate fiasco.