Panday:
I'm not surprised
Port Spain
Petroleumworldtt.com
01 06 08
Opposition
Leader Basdeo Panday says he is not surprised that
corruption charges against former
PNM energy minister Dr Eric Williams have been
dismissed.
"I did not expect anything different...the
PNM did say that they take care of their own," Panday
said in a telephone interview with the Express
yesterday.
Panday, who is currently in London on vacation,
claimed there was bias in the judicial process
and the same may happen with respect to the corruption
charges against former PNM works and transport
minister Franklin Khan.
Williams, also a former PNM member of parliament
for Port of Spain South, was charged with seven
counts of unlawfully accepting various sums totalling
$75,000 from local government councillor Dansam
Dhansook, also a PNM member, in exchange for contracts
in an oil exploration project.
But yesterday, Port of Spain Senior Magistrate
Lucina Cardenas-Ragoonanan dismissed the case on
the grounds of insufficient evidence.
Congress of the People (COP) Political Leader
Winston Dookeran meanwhile told the Express that
the courts had decided and the decision must be
respected.
Dookeran said he did not want to elaborate on
that matter.
On another issue, he stressed the need for Prime
Minister Patrick Manning to lay the Mustill report
on the entire controversy surrounding Chief Justice
Sat Sharma.
Dookeran said steps should be taken to restore
integrity in public institutions and the justice
system.
He said he was disappointed that Manning was treating
the entire issue very frivolously.
Story
by Anna Ramdass from
Trinidad Express
Trinidad
Express
Tuesday,
January 1st 2008
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