Police confirm ‘Utegate’ email is fake
Australian police yesterday said an email at the centre of a scandal that has rocked the country’s politics was a fake, blowing a hole in opposition calls for Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to resign.
The apparent forgery in the “Utegate” scandal was revealed after a police raid on the home of Godwin Grech, a senior treasury official whose testimony to a senate inquiry sparked the row.
“Preliminary results of those forensic examinations indicate that the email referred to at the centre of this investigation has been created by a person or persons other than the purported author of the email,” a police statement said.
The announcement capped a day of high political drama with Rudd, Treasurer Wayne Swan and opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, whose jobs were all on the line, embroiled in furious exchanges in parliament.
Turnbull’s argument now appears seriously weakened after he spent days calling for Rudd’s job, basing claims that he misled parliament on the discredited email.
The note, supposedly sent by Rudd’s economic adviser and published by weekend newspapers here, had appeared to back up allegations that the prime minister helped a car-dealer friend seek government funds.
But Rudd dismissed the correspondence as “false, fictitious and a forgery” and turned the attack on the opposition, describing the events as the “sordid Turnbull email forgery affair.”
“This fraudulent email was the rock on which the leader of the opposition has constructed his case against me and the Treasurer,” Rudd said.
As the politicians argued in parliament, police searched Grech’s home with the help of IT experts, later announcing that the email in question appeared fake.
A “ute” or utility vehicle, is Australia’s ubiquitous two-seater car with a flat-bed back
The emails, sent in April and May, concern two unnamed car dealers and their need for assistance with finance under the OzCar scheme, and were circulated among a number of top treasury officials, Rudd’s office and the Motor Trades Association of Australia.
*Source Macau Daily Times
