Further probe into E-mailgate not beneficial to TT

Political commentator Dr Winford James said any further investigation into the e-mailgate scandal will be of no benefit to the nation as nothing new will come out of it.

In May 2013, then Opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley came to the Parliament accusing then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar of conspiracy.

During the weekly police briefing yesterday, ASP Michael Pierre announced there was not sufficent basis for charging anyone named in the matter.

James said it was a police matter and not a parliamentary matter.

“The matter was initated by Dr Rowley and continued under him that the e-mails seem to be suggesting that the government then was at fault. The names that were called were government names and the evidence at the time seemed to suggest that member of the government were involved in something very sordid.”

James said the country had been waiting for some resolution since 2013 and now the police were saying there was no basis for charging anyone. “The police are talking about their own investigation. I believe there was another investigation...the Parliament did their own investigation. The FBI came into play and I believe Google was involved.

“The important thing is the police are saying we conducted an investigation and we have found nothing to suggest that charges should be laid against the persons named in the e-mails. They are saying the e-mails were not authentic. I don’t know that that is the case, but how do they know that, and why did it take so long to find that out.”

James said he did not think Police Commissioner should be commenting on the matter as he was one of the people named in the e-mails.

“To his credit he gave up his laptop because he thought that he had nothing to fear. He was one of the few exemplary ones who said if you think I am guilty of anything, here is my laptop. Check it and see for yourself. But, because he was named, I didn’t want him to be the person making comments.

“The matter of ethics to my mind. For example, I would not have wanted Suruj Rambachan to be the one to give us the news because he was named in the scandal. Just as I would not want the Prime Minister to be the one since he was the one who initiated the investigation. There were some very sordid charges made.”

He said one had to be careful to make a distinction between bringing data to the community, and at the same time informing the nation as to the outcome. He said it should come from an independent body as the police are supposed to be. As for repercussions for Dr Rowley, James said that would be a political matter. “That he had raised a matter that has taken so long to be resolved and at the end of the day nobody has been charged, a lot of police time has been involved in this, probably it was expensive, there are going to be political consequences to the extent that the Opposition, now that nobody will be charged, will have a basis for saying this was a wild goose chase, that this was something that should not have been undertaken in the first place.

“That is all a political thing and it is all very legitimate. Some matters cannot be resolved simply by a court ruling. In this case the investigation did not get to court. The investigation did not find anybody culpable. So a lot of time was spent, a lot of money was spent, and it is up to the persons named in the scandal to politicise if they think it is worth the while.”

James said any call for Rowley to step down would be a political response.

“He might very well say that information came to hand that seemed very dangerous, very threatening, to the security of the state and he would have been remiss if he had not brought it to the national community.”