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In July, Hall testified that he received a phone call from a panicky Del Mastro before the 2008 campaign started.

Hall said that Del Mastro hired Holinshed to make voter-identification calls for the campaign, and produced payroll and call-log records to show that his company did the work, and emails that show Del Mastro inquiring about the progress.

Del Mastro has testified that he did pay Holinshed $21,000, but the money was for a customized software program, not election calls.

On Tuesday, Ayotte accused Hall of faking the Del Mastro emails, and said Judge Lisa Cameron should believe his client, not Hall.

Hall’s testimony was “evasive, self-serving, not capable of belief,” while Del Mastro’s story was “far more believable. Ultimately, you are going to be forced to make some credibility findings,” he told the judge.

The key emails were extracted from Hall’s computer by RCMP computer forensic experts, but Hall would only let the Mounties have emails relevant to the case, refusing to let them do a full forensic examination of his computer.

Ayotte attacked Elections Canada for allowing Hall to set the terms of the search.

“There’s a lot of questions that we have about this investigation,” he said.

Elections Canada didn’t interview Holinshed’s callers, subpoena phone records or track down recipients of the calls who donated to Del Mastro’s campaign, which Ayotte said posed problems for the defence.

Ayotte said Hall lied when he told Elections Canada that clients drew his attention to alleged inaccuracies in Del Mastro’s election return, and said Hall waited to go to the agency until the 2011 election because he wanted to embarrass Del Mastro.