David Leigh and Rob Evans
The Guardian Wednesday February 14, 2007
Allegations that George Galloway may have broken UN sanctions by receiving oil money from Saddam Hussein have been sent to Scotland Yard by the Serious Fraud Office. The office has recommended that police open an investigation, and talks are currently taking place with the Crown Prosecution Service.
After deliberating for a year, the SFO has decided that the Respect MP for Bethnal Green and Bow, who has denied any impropriety, will not be investigated on separate offence of corruption.
To prosecute for sanctions-busting, the police would have to find evidence that Mr Galloway knew that money earned from oil sales was being diverted to pay for his political campaigning. Under the UN sanctions, oil sales were only permitted for approved humanitarian purposes.
Scotland Yard said yesterday: "The Metropolitan police is in discussions with the Crown Prosecution Service and is seeking its advice. We are considering a request to investigate the matter. We are not investigating at this time." A spokesman for Mr Galloway dismissed the move. "This story is so old, so hoary, so repetitive that it could be on the TV programme Life on Mars. George has been exonerated repeatedly. The SFO must have handed a blank sheet of paper to Scotland Yard. It is a waste of public servants' time."
The Volcker report, a 2005 US-backed investigation into abuses of the UN oil-for-food programme, accused Mr Galloway of receiving illicit payments in return for campaigning for the sanctions on Iraq to be lifted. Similar accusations were made by a congressional committee chaired by US Republican senator Norm Coleman.
Mr Galloway was a vocal critic of the sanctions in the 1990s through his campaign, the Mariam Appeal. Large donations came from a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat.
The Volcker report said Mr Zureikat was given $740,000 (£380,000) by Taurus Petroleum, an oil company which had acquired Iraqi shipments. He then distributed the cash in several ways, the report said, some of it as a kickback to the Saddam's regime.
He donated $340,000 to the Mariam Appeal, and another $150,000 allegedly went to a bank account controlled by Mr Galloway's then wife, Amineh Abu Zayyad. The Volcker report claimed that Iraq allocated the selling-rights to 18m barrels of oil "to support Mr Galloway's campaign against the sanctions".
Mr Galloway has denied that he asked for these consignments, and says that he never received financial support from Saddam's regime.
He says he did not know whether Mr Zureikat was passing kickbacks to Baghdad or whether the Jordanian businessman's donation to the Mariam Appeal came from oil sales made under the oil-for-food programme.
No comments:
Post a Comment