As the two-and-a-half-year investigation into Emailgate finally draws to a close, evidence so far unearthed seems to point in one inevitable direction—the case is caving in.
Reliable sources last night admitted that charges were unlikely to be proffered against anyone given the daunting task of proving beyond a reasonable doubt details of a criminal conspiracy involving the most senior government officials of the former People’s Partnership administration.
“Put it this way, we can’t prove or disprove the allegations contained in thread of emails,” a source close to the investigation confided to the T&T Guardian.
“We have been able to corroborate certain events listed in the emails but that can’t stand on its own,” the source added.
With the assistance of the United States Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations, local investigators were able to retrieve emails from the accounts of former prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar (kamlapb1@gmail.com): former attorney general Anand Ramlogan (anand@tstt.com): former national security minister Gary Griffith (captaingarygriffith@hotmail.com: and former government minister Dr Suruj Rambachan (surujrambachan@hotmail.com) for the month of September 2012.
Sources said investigators were unable to match the emails disclosed in May 2013 by then opposition leader, now Prime Minister, Dr Keith Rowley, to the emails disclosed by US email service providers Google Inc and Hotmail, even though steps were taken in 2013 by the US Department of Justice, acting on a request from the police through the Central Authority Unit, to preserve the archives of the four named individuals.
One investigator said last night that the six-month delay before the emails were made public could have contributed to this. Rowley said in 2013 that he had approached then president George Maxwell Richards and then Integrity Commission chairman Kenneth Gordon, six months earlier, after he received the thread of emails, seeking their intervention.
It was only after he confirmed that neither office holder had taken any action, did he read the emails in Parliament during a debate of no confidence in then prime minister Persad-Bissessar.
Investigators were able to confirm many details contained in the emails, including an Ash Wednesday meeting in 2013, where Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, SC, was summoned to a meeting with Chief Justice Ivor Archie at the Hall of Justice, Port-of-Spain.
Reliable sources said Gaspard provided a detailed statement to investigators about his meeting with Archie but the Chief Justice requested investigators to put their questions in writing and he responded to some but did not affix his signature to the document.
It was alleged in the emails that Archie was being pressured by government ministers to appoint Gaspard as judge of the High Court but Gaspard, who has the final say on whether criminal charges can be filed against someone or not, never applied for such a post.
Another claim made in the emails was to spy on the DPP to know his every move.
A June 3, 2013 Special Branch report, signed by Supt Gary Gould, then head of the Special Branch of the Police Service, also confirmed that during a sweep of the DPP’s Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain, head office, evidence was found that someone was using high-tech lasers to listen in on conversations in the main conference room and one of the main meeting rooms.
Gaspard has recused himself from advising police investigators in the matter, since he was a material witness and appointed Deputy DPP Joan Honore-Paul to deal with it. Honore-Paul had to caution Persad-Bissessar in May 2015, after the Integrity Commission concluded its probe, saying the police were far from done with their investigations and the case was still wide open.
She had publicly chastised Persad-Bissessar after the then prime minister called for an end to the probe in the face of a document from the United States Department of Justice.
Honore-Paul stated then that it was wrong for Persad-Bissessar to release the contents of US DOJ report, which was provided to the police, saying that the treaty under which this information was provided prohibited anyone else other than the national security parties probing the matter to use it.
Persad-Bissessar had used the document during a motion of no confidence against Rowley, which resulted in his suspension from Parliament over his claims related to Emailgate two years earlier.
Emailgate history
The Emailgate allegations were first made public by Dr Keith Rowley on May 20, 2013, when he read in Parliament a thread of 31 email messages purporting to be a conversation between four people, whose email accounts bore striking similarities to those of the then prime minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar, then attorney general Anand Ramlogan, then national security advisor Gary Griffith and then government minister Suruj Rambachan.
The conversation focused on the publication of a story in the T&T Guardian newspaper about the proclamation of Section 34 of the Administration of Justice (Indictable Offence) Amendment Act on August 31, 2012; a conspiracy to murder investigative reporter Denyse Renne, who had been pursuing the story, and the removal of the Director of Public Prosecutions Roger Gaspard, SC, from office, among other illegal and nefarious acts.
The proclamation of Section 34 sparked widespread outrage and a spontaneous public demonstration, as it was viewed as specially crafted legislation to benefit United National Congress financiers Ishwar Galbaransingh and Steve Ferguson, who are charged with a series of criminal offences relating to the $1.6 billion Piarco Airport Development Project.
In the face of the outcry, the then Persad-Bissessar government convened an emergency hearing of Parliament in early September 2013 and repealed the law.
Former High Court judge and then justice minister Herbert Volney, who introduced Section 34 to the legislation, which in effect provided an escape clause for people charged with serious crimes, including fraud, to seek a dismissal if their cases were not determined within ten years, was fired.
Galbaransingh and Ferguson remain wanted in the United States for fraud offences relating to the same project but a High Court judge ruled that the proper forum for them to face trial was in T&T. The State never challenged the High Court ruling.
The Privy Council last month reserved its decision on a challenge filed by two of the Piarco defendants which challenged the repeal of Section 34 as unconstitutional.
In May 2015, the Integrity Commission closed its parallel investigation into the matter, saying there were “insufficient grounds” to pursue the probe. That statement triggered the sudden resignation of deputy chairman of the Integrity Commission Sebastian Ventour, a retired High Court judge and fellow commissioner Shelly-Anne Lalchan.
Ventour went on to criticise the commission’s chairman Zainool Hosein, a retired Appeal Court judge, saying the statement issued by the body was incorrect. He said the Emailgate investigation and the information the commission received involved just Persad-Bissessar and Ramlogan but said nothing about the other individuals (Griffith and Rambachan) also under investigation.
Deputy Commissioner of Police Glenn Hackett, who is overseeing the police probe into the matter, said yesterday that the investigators received the information from Hotmail in September and they were currently perusing the voluminous data.