Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar yesterday described the harsh public criticism by deputy Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) Joan Honore-Paul as “vindication” of her own statements that Emailgate exchange was fake.
On Wednesday, Honore-Paul issued a media statement slamming Persad-Bissessar for her suggestion that she and her colleagues should be cleared in the Emailgate probe, adding that no one has been cleared and the police were far from done with their investigations. Honore-Paul also chastised Persad-Bissessar for releasing contents of reports provided to the police from the US Department of Justice, saying the treaty under which this information was provided prohibited anyone else other than the national security parties probing the matter from using it.
But Persad-Bissessar yesterday thanked Honore-Paul for her statements and took the stinging comments as confirmation that the emails were fabricated.
“I am very happy. I feel vindicated by the statements made by the (deputy) Director of (public) Prosecutions because of fact she has confirmed that the document that appeared in the media from the US Department of Justice is in fact an authentic document and that document is pointing to the fact that the emails were fake, so I feel vindicated,” Persad-Bissessar said after the opening ceremony of the Paramin Primary School yesterday.
“She does not ever say the letter does not exist, in effect she is saying that the letter is bona fide. The DPP and the police can continue to investigate, I have no problem with that. I am convinced that there is sufficient evidence that the emails were fake, what else is there?”
Persad-Bissessar noted she is ready to put the email matter behind her and said the focus must now be on how a private US Department of Justice letter became public information.
“I am sure that the police and the DPP will continue to investigate as to how that document reached into the public domain,” she said
The Prime Minister, however, said the tone of Honore-Paul’s statement seemed to be more concerned with how “the truth became known and part of the public domain.”
Persad-Bissessar had read out the media reports detailing the contents of the US Department of Justice letter in Parliament and said that she had a duty to clear her name and the names of her colleagues in the same space that the allegations were made.
Yesterday, she said, “Matters were raised in the parliament where fake or fabricated emails were brought to the parliament, read into the parliament records and therefore that was a court into which I needed to clear our names.
“That was the place where should I have evidence I would bring that evidence and as I say now, the DPP is confirming in effect that a US Department of Justice document is a bona fide one, so the parliament was the place.
I went back to the parliament when evidence came forward that the documents were fake, the emails were fake,” she said.
She said Opposition leader Dr Keith Rowley and his colleagues had the opportunity to challenge that evidence but never did so.
“Up to today, they have never said that the evidence provided to show that the emails were false were in fact not authentic or not valid. They chose instead to run out of parliament. We did not put the opposition out of parliament,” she said. The PM said the fact that the information is now public should not interfere with the DPP, Integrity Commission or the police investigations
“We have not in any way asked them not to pursue their jobs, not to do their job, we have not done that. I would just like to ask that they continue to work and make the results known as soon as possible,” she said.
EMAILGATE
While reading the emails in Parliament, Rowley stated that several events referred to in the emails had been corroborated by actual events in the public sphere.
The emails claimed that spy equipment had been placed in the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP).
Less than two weeks after the emails were read, a T&T Guardian report said a laser spying device was discovered in the Office of DPP Roger Gaspard, SC.
T&T Guardian investigations revealed the device was detected in November 2012 inside the conference room of the DPP’s office at the Winsure Building, Richmond Street, Port-of-Spain.