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Saudi prince received secret payments for UK arms deal, says BBC

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

London, June 7, IRNA
UK Bribes-Saudi Arms Deal
Former Saudi Ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan received hundreds of millions of pounds in secret payments from Britain's top defence manufacturer with the knowledge of Prime Minister Tony Blair's government, according to the BBC.

The payments made by BAE Systems were actually a conduit to Bandar for his role in the multi-billion al-Yamamah arms agreement, Britain's biggest ever export deal signed in 1985, the state-funded broadcaster said it had learned Thursday.

The alleged bribes were said to have been discovered during a year-long inquiry conducted by Britain's Serious Fraud Office (SFO), but which was abruptly halted last December after Blair said the investigation was a threat to national security.

The dropping of the investigation also came amid concerns that it might jeopardize a new multi-billion arms deal with Saudi Arabia to supply Eurofighters.

The BBC said that the payments, believed to total more than Pnds one billion (Dlrs 1.9 bn), were sent to two Saudi embassy accounts in Washington, were written into the government-to-government arms deal contract in secret annexes.

Allegations previously made in the British press have also suggested that Mark Thatcher, son of the British prime minister at the time, was also involved in the deal.

The al-Yamamah deal included the supply of more than 100 Tornado aircraft and is estimated to have been worth over Pnds 40 billion (Dlrs 78 bn) over more than a decade.

The new claims, to be made in the BBC's current affairs Panorama programme next Monday prompted the head of parliament's committee which investigates strategic exports, Labour MP Roger Berry, to call for a proper investigation into the allegations.

Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said that if ministers in either the present or previous governments were involved there should be a "major parliamentary inquiry".

"It is one thing for a company to have engaged in alleged corruption overseas. It is another thing if British government ministers have approved it," Cable said.

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