Opposition Senator Faris Al-Rawi, speaking this week as the legal representative to PNM leader Dr Keith Rowley, condemned the quality of the police probe into the controversial e-mails read into Hansard on May 20. Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar wrote to the acting CoP Stephen Williams that day, asking him to investigate what she described as “these very serious allegations and ascertain the authenticity of those e-mails and to take such action as is required according to the law.”
On May 28, Deputy Police Commissioner Mervyn Richardson began that investigation with an interview with Opposition Leader Keith Rowley that seems to have gone terribly wrong. Mr Richardson seemed defeated by technology when Mr Al-Rawi played an audio clip from the meeting with Dr Rowley in which the police team seemed to be foundering in its strategy to gather information relevant to the case.
DCP Richardson then fell back on the police standby in such losing scenarios, ceding the field to the politicians and saying that he “would leave all the talking” to Dr Rowley. Works and Local Government Minister Dr Suruj Rambachan then proudly announced that he is fully co-operating with the police in their investigation, offering not only his devices, but also access to his personal e-mail accounts for police review.
It’s not surprising to see the police regrouping in the face of such bald politicking of their case, and it’s clear that they should have done a better job of preparing for this investigation. Dr Rowley asked the investigating officers directly whether he was under investigation. According to Mr Al-Rawi, Mr Richardson responded that the Opposition Leader was not under investigation.
That’s a surprisingly premature position for a senior officer of the Police Service to take this early in an investigation, and given the scale of the allegations which have polarised public opinion. Archbishop Joseph Harris, speaking at this year’s Corpus Christi celebration at the Queen’s Park Savannah described the situation as “one of the darkest periods in our young history as a nation,” and one which brought up issues of criminal activity by those in pursuit of power.
That’s a fair and reserved determination of the issues that the police face in pursuing this investigation. This week’s halting start to the investigation underlines the need for an independent digital forensics examiner to focus this probe intelligently. There is no need, for example, for a police investigating team to take anyone’s devices. Technology exists to clone the contents of cell phones and computers, harvesting not only what’s there, but what’s been recently deleted, for forensic review.
But the alleged e-mails were supposed to have been circulated on cloud-based mail services, and may have left no traceable information on any electronic devices that they have been authored or read on. To truly investigate this case then, the police will have to mount a case capable of moving these services to participate in the verification of these e-mails.
There is good reason to worry that the Police Service may not have engaged every service and technology available to ensure that its investigation into these allegations of impropriety is conducted with impeccable equanimity.