A Bermudian website owner is taking a battle against offensive messages to American authorities after being targeted with racial slurs.

And Telecommunications Minister Renee Webb warned that spreading racist and libellous information over the Internet - from Bermuda based websites - could lead to offending websites being shut down. However she admitted she was powerless to stop foreign-based sites and correspondents.

She spoke out as a race row broke out on a Bermuda.Onion.com web chat room with an American-based correspondent called "Laurence D'Alberti" - a self-confessed former drug user with a grudge against Bermuda for deporting him - making racist insults against Bermuda Sun Columnist Bryant Trew, who owns the site.

Mr. Trew is now pursuing his tormentor via a US police department after tracing his e-mail address.

The man had posted offensive messages on Bermuda.Onion.com using various aliases but when he was barred he panicked and used his real name to ask that all his postings be removed.

Mr. Trew then put the correspondent's e-mail address in a search engine and found it belonged to a US company and he now believes he has the genuine name of the offensive messager.

He said: "I banned him from my site and that should have been the end of it. Then he used the `N' word by direct e-mail to me."

The stalking by e-mail continued and then Mr. Trew was phoned at home by his tormentor. However Mr. Trew said he would not be removing his direct e-mail address from his website.

He said: "It's just like the ordinary world where you have a phone number in the book.

"If someone doesn't like me and is crazy enough and is not taking their medicine then they can do the exact same thing.

"It's really amazing what people say on the e-mail when they think they have an alias. Some real dirt."

He said even people who stuck with their e-mail alias could be traced via the computer they used as the message would go via a server.

"If the president was threatened by e-mail they would track it down very quickly but someone like me it is going to take longer."

Mr. Trew said people who posted offensive mailings on internet chat rooms could quickly be stopped on his site which had a registered board where subscribers fill out forms and agree to terms and conditions.

He said: "If they violate a policy I can stop their post."

But he said the Bermuda.com website run by Tony Brannon didn't have such a policy although he could understand why.

He said: "It can be a blessing and a curse. When you don't have a registration board people feel more comfortable posting information because it is totally anonymous."

Mr. Brannon's website was also dragged into the row but he said he had not had many similar problems.

However when The Royal Gazette went online yesterday they found a potentially libellous posting which Mr. Brannon admitted he hadn't read.

Although he admitted he didn't read every e-mail, he said he removed offensive postings when readers brought them to his attention.

He said he was legally covered as his site went through a US server and it would be the authors (of the post) and not he who would end up being sued if it went to court.

Ms Webb said only two formal complaints had been lodged with her department about racist local websites since the Electronic Transactions Act was passed in 1999. In both cases the owners of the web sites closed them down voluntarily after a warning - removing the need for Government to act.