Posted on 04/25/2003 3:26:32 AM PDT by kattracks
The appeal set up by George Galloway to fund treatment of an Iraqi girl and which later paid for his trips to the Middle East is to be investigated by the Charity Commission.
The Attorney General's office said yesterday that the commission would undertake "further fact-finding" into allegations that the Mariam Appeal used "charitable funds for non-charitable purposes".
Hours earlier, the Labour MP for Glasgow Kelvin, who has denied receiving money from Saddam Hussein's regime, sent an open letter to Lord Goldsmith, the Attorney General, saying it would be perverse to investigate his "anti-war, anti-sanctions campaigning work".
The appeal was set up in 1998 to pay for leukaemia treatment for Mariam Hamza, then aged four. Mr Galloway said then that it could cost £50,000 and that the appeal's target was £100,000 "with the balance being sent back to Iraq in medicines and medical supplies".
In his letter to Lord Goldsmith, Mr Galloway said: "In the end, we raised more than nine times the initial target."
The MP said more than £1 million was raised over four years, mostly from the United Arab Emirates.
It remains unclear how much was money donated specifically for the girl's treatment. Mr Galloway declared the trips in the MP's register of interests.
The Mariam Appeal, which is now defunct, was not a registered charity but can be investigated by the Charity Commission because it operated like one.
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