AG Condemns Erroneous and Mischievous Guardian Story
PRESS RELEASE
FROM THE OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL
Re: Guardian Frontpage Story of Friday June 28th 2013.
The Honourable Attorney General, Anand Ramlogan, S.C., condemns the mischievous, misleading and false headline in today’s Guardian newspaper, “AG has no trust in cops”. There is no quote from the AG in the story that reflects this ill-conceived headline.
The story that follows on page 3 is equally erroneous. The opening paragraph states: “Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mervyn Richardson yesterday described as unfortunate Attorney General Anand Ramlogan’s statement that he did not trust the police to treat with his personal devices with confidentiality in the Section 34 e-mail probe.” DCP Richardson was clearly lured into the trap of commenting on a statement that was falsely attributed to me
No such statement was uttered by the AG during the live televised Post Cabinet media conference. This is why that none of the other newspapers carried such a headline, story, or quote. It is unethical and irresponsible for a newspaper to solicit comments and reactions to a statement that was never made in circumstances where it would have been very easy to verify its accuracy.
On June 4th Deputy Commissioner of Police Mervyn Richardson said that the investigations into “email gate were at pace and foreign help was on the way”. This announcement meant that the police had hired foreign IT experts to assist the investigation.
What the AG did was to explain the need for the police to have a clearly defined protocol and procedure to safeguard the integrity of the information on his devices. This is to ensure the integrity of the information on his devices are not compromised, interfered or tampered with after the police takes possession.
Such procedural guidelines are quite normal and consistent with international best practice in most countries. The police provides the relevant information (“emails”) to the IT expert who would in turn examine the device based on the relevant issues that are the subject matter of the police investigation. The IT expert will then pass the results of his examination onto the police who may then conduct further inquiries if necessary and where appropriate
Lawyers for the AG are currently awaiting clarification from the police on the procedure and protocols they intend to adopt. He remains confident that a reasonable compromise will be reached which will facilitate a thorough inspection of his devices by qualified IT experts selected by the Police Service. The AG wishes to reaffirm that he has no objection whatsoever to his devices being inspected as part of this investigation because he is determined to have the perpetrator of this political fraud exposed, charged and prosecuted. He pledges his full cooperation and support for this investigation.
ANAND RAMLOGAN, S.C.,
ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE REPUBLIC OF TRINIDAD AND TOBAGO
Dated: FRIDAY, 28TH JUNE 2013.