Police: Damaging Rudd e-mail was faked

CANBERRA, Australia, June 22 (UPI) -- Australian police say an e-mail that alleged abuse of office by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was faked.

The e-mail became an issue this past weekend when a civil servant testified before a Senate commission that a Rudd adviser had sent out an e-mail seeking to win a government bailout loan for a political supporter, car dealer John Grant, The Daily Telegraph reported.

The allegation resulted in a demand from opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull that Rudd and his treasurer, Wayne Swan, resign. But on Monday Australian Federal Police said the e-mail was a forgery, the British newspaper said.

"Preliminary results of those forensic examinations indicate that the e-mail referred to at the center of this investigation has been created by a person or persons other than the purported author of the e-mail," a police statement said.

"What we see here is a leader of the opposition who is simply swinging in the breeze," the Telegraph reported Rudd saying. "He has based his entire attack on the existence of an e-mail which is a fake and a forgery."