At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan says yes­ter­day's judg­ment vin­di­cates Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar's de­ci­sion to ini­ti­ate the UTT probe and he too felt vin­di­cat­ed in his de­ci­sion to pur­sue the mat­ter.He spoke at a news con­fer­ence at his Ca­bil­do Cham­bers of­fice, St Vin­cent Street, Port-of-Spain, short­ly af­ter the rul­ing was giv­en.Ram­lo­gan said the rul­ing al­so re­pelled the ar­gu­ment and crit­i­cism of the PNM that the UTT and oth­er probes were witch-hunts and there was no jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for them.

Say­ing he was the sub­ject of "much vil­i­fi­ca­tion and ma­li­cious at­tacks by the PNM for pur­su­ing those mat­ters in court," Ram­lo­gan said he was hap­py with the rul­ing.Not­ing that the PNM was claim­ing the mat­ters had no le­gal ba­sis, Ram­lo­gan said the State had been vic­to­ri­ous in all of them."To­day is a sig­nif­i­cant and im­por­tant vic­to­ry be­cause it rep­re­sents ju­di­cial en­dorse­ment of the mer­it of the claim," Ram­lo­gan said, adding it "clears the way for tri­al of this case to go for­ward."

He said con­se­quent­ly, the de­fen­dants would be forced to give ev­i­dence and sub­mit them­selves to cross-ex­am­i­na­tion in court.Wit­ness state­ments in the mat­ter are due on Sep­tem­ber 1 and the tri­al has been fixed for De­cem­ber 3-5, he told re­porters.Ram­lo­gan said the rul­ing "clears all the ob­sta­cles in the way of this tri­al pro­gress­ing" and he hoped it would be giv­en the ut­most pri­or­i­ty which it de­served.