Both min­is­ters were hauled be­fore the court on bribery and cor­rup­tion al­le­ga­tions made by Dhan­sook.

How­ev­er, Williams was freed due to un­re­li­able ev­i­dence and charges were dropped against Khan af­ter in­ves­ti­ga­tions re­vealed a con­spir­a­cy to per­vert the course of jus­tice. Ad­mit­ting that he feared for his life, the for­mer Ec­clesville coun­cil­lor who said he had made at­tempts to cor­rect the "mess," claimed that be­cause of scare tac­tics and lies em­ployed by a cer­tain in­di­vid­ual he was ma­nip­u­lat­ed and led down a path of no re­turn, "one lie af­ter an­oth­er lie." "I want­ed to come out and say ex­act­ly what hap­pened but I was afraid and was be­ing guid­ed. I have lost every­thing and I have noth­ing to lie about any­more. I have noth­ing to hide any­more," said Dhan­sook, whose busi­ness has col­lapsed and his fam­i­ly life al­most shat­tered.

"I nev­er bribed Mr Khan or Williams. In fact, I nev­er knew Williams," he con­fessed.

"I knew Khan be­cause we were child­hood friends. I am sor­ry for what I did and the hurt I caused," Dhan­sook said, as he open­ly ex­plained the type of busi­ness re­la­tion­ship he had shared with Khan.

Snr Supt Solomon Koon Koon of the An­ti Cor­rup­tion In­ves­ti­ga­tions Bu­reau vis­it­ed Dhan­sook last week and ques­tioned him in re­la­tion to the mat­ter.

Khan: We will for­give with time

Both Williams and Khan ex­pressed sur­prise yes­ter­day on learn­ing that Dhan­sook had apol­o­gised to them for the al­le­ga­tions he had made and the pain he had caused. Khan said: "We have been hurt for an ex­ten­sive pe­ri­od of time based on to­tal­ly in­ac­cu­rate in­for­ma­tion. How­ev­er, based on Chris­t­ian prin­ci­ples my fam­i­ly and I would make every ef­fort to for­give with time."

Williams: God con­tin­ues to de­liv­er me

Mean­while, Williams who was con­tact­ed in West Africa, thanked God and his 80-year-old moth­er Edris Codd-Williams for the strength and sup­port dur­ing his or­deal. He said: "I feel very pleased. My mom at­tend­ed court on every oc­ca­sion ex­cept when she un­der­went surgery. Sev­er­al peo­ple be­lieved in me and all I would say at this point is God con­tin­ues to de­liv­er me in spec­tac­u­lar ways."