Publication: Business Day Issued: Date: 2006-11-20 Reporter: Foreign Staff with SapaAFP Reporter:

Saudis Warn UK Off Arms-Perks Probe

 

Publication 

Business Day
Date 2006-11-20

Reporter

 Foreign Staff with Sapa-AFP

Web Link

www.businessday.co.za

 

LONDON ­ Saudi Arabia has threatened to suspend diplomatic links with the UK unless it blocks a probe into an alleged £60m slush fund for some members of its royal family.

The UK’s Serious Fraud Office, which investigates and prosecutes complex fraud cases, has been examining claims that British defence company BAE Systems established a slush fund to provide perks such as luxury cars to ensure that the Saudis kept buying from BAE, London’s Sunday Times reported yesterday.

The payments, in the form of lavish holidays, a fleet of luxury cars including a gold Rolls-Royce, rented apartments and other perks, are alleged to have been paid to ensure the Saudis continued to buy from BAE under the so-called Al-Yamamah deal, rather than going to another country. Al-Yamamah is the biggest defence contract in British history and has kept BAE in business for 20 years.

The Saudi ambassador to London, Prince Mohammed bin Nawaf, visited Prime Minister Tony Blair’s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, at Downing Street in September, warning that unless the inquiry was dropped, diplomatic ties would be cut. Intelligence co-operation over al-Qaeda would also be stopped.

The ultimatum came after Serious Fraud Office lawyers persuaded a Swiss magistrate to force disclosure of details about confidential Swiss bank accounts.

In August, Saudi Arabia announced that it would buy 72 Eurofighter Typhoon aircraft in a multibillion-pound deal which saves thousands of jobs at BAE Systems. The sale was the latest in a series of lucrative deals which date back to 1985.

According to the weekend report, the contract could be worth £40bn and could safeguard at least 10 000 British jobs.

The Saudi warning came after the home of John Bredenkamp, a Zimbabwean businessman and one of the UK’s richest men *1, was raided last month in investigations into the alleged slush fund. Defence ministry police and Serious Fraud Office investigators searched Bredenkamp’s Kensington home as the corruption inquiry appeared to have been expanded to include arms and equipment deals in Africa.

The Serious Fraud Office said the raids were “part of an ongoing investigation by the Serious Fraud Office and defence ministry police into suspected corruption relating to defence contracts where BAE Systems is the prime contractor”. Bredenkamp has interests in southern Africa in a company called Aviation Consulting Services *2, a representative for aircraft makers including BAE.

With acknowledgements to Sapa and Business Day.


*1       Just follow the money - right from BAE's head office in Farnborough to its Swiss financing operations, then its front companies in the Cayman Islands and The Bahamas, then the ANC's secret wonga accounts for splodging partly on its next election campaign and partly on its main men.


*2      Never said we never told them so.