The ground-breaking work by Stewart’s search party came to a sudden halt in the wee hours of Saturday morning when representatives of Jamaica Tours shut down a key server and prevented its cloning, saying they feared loss and damage to their business.
“It is understood that while the parties were in the middle of discussing technical issues, JTL or their agent shut down the server without advising either the lawyers for Mr Stewart or the independent court-appointed attorney,” said a spokesman for Stewart.
On March 12, 2009, United States and local representatives, acting on behalf of Stewart, swooped down on the tour company under authority of the Jamaican Supreme Court, supervised by a court-appointed independent attorney.
Stewart believed that a series of “vicious e-mails carrying hate material” against him and authored by one “Dr Paulette Robinson” – possibly a pseudonym – had its origins in computers at the offices of Jamaica Tours Limited. The company is owned by the family of Opposition Senator Noel Sloley and located at 1207 Providence Drive, Rosehall near this north coast resort city.
The hotelier’s fears were confirmed by a search from New York to Kingston that involved US and Jamaican courts, search engine giant Google, American forensic experts and local attorneys, under the watchful eyes of the independent attorney.
On day two of the first incident, JTL stopped the search, risking contempt of court charges for breaching the Supreme Court Order, but agreed to have it resume last week before stopping it again.
It is also understood that Noel Sloley Jr, son of the senator, had advised that he would make his laptop available but refused to do so Friday.
Attorney for Jamaica Tours, Gordon Brown of Rattray Patterson Rattray, promised to comment on the development but did not do so at Sunday Observer press time.
The publication of one of the Paulette Robinson e-mails by John Issa, chairman of SuperClubs, to an attorney and the subsequent transmission of the attorney to another party resulted in Stewart suing both Issa and the attorney for publication of libellous material about him.
