Posted on 10/25/2005 7:31:47 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
LONDON (Reuters) - Maverick British lawmaker George Galloway on Tuesday angrily rejected new U.S. accusations that he profited from the U.N. oil-for-food program for Iraq.
The flamboyant parliamentarian, an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, challenged Congressmen to charge him with perjury and pledged to fly out to Washington on the next plane to defend himself.
U.S. congressional investigators say they have evidence that Galloway profited from the U.N. program. They also allege he knowingly made false or misleading statements to Congress in May when he denied the charges.
The Senate governmental affairs subcommittee on investigations will hand over its findings in a report to the U.S. Justice Department and to British authorities, said panel chairman Senator Norm Coleman.
Galloway, fiercely denying the charges, said: "I'm demanding that they charge me with contempt and with perjury, I'm demanding it."
"If a Senate committee can go on the international airwaves without putting this to you, without sending me an advance and accuse me of lying under oath in front of a Senate committee, then I demand they charge me with perjury and I'll be on the next plane to face it," he told BBC Radio.
The report said evidence showed Galloway personally solicited and was granted oil allocations from the Iraqi government for 23 million barrels from 1999 to 2003.
It said Galloway's wife, from whom he is now estranged, received about $150,000 in connection with the allocations and that a fund he started, the Mariam Appeal, received at least $446,000.
Galloway has said he launched the Mariam Appeal cancer charity to help a sick Iraqi girl and for medical aid to Iraqi children. The subcommittee has suggested he used the fund to conceal oil payments.
The report also said Saddam Hussein's government got $1.64 million in illegal "surcharge" payments or kickbacks in connection with oil allocations to Galloway and the Mariam Appeal.
Far from showing the usual deference of witnesses called by Congress, Galloway used the May hearing as a platform to attack the U.S.-led invasion.
The London member of parliament, ejected from the ruling British Labour Party for his opposition to the war and barbed attacks on British Prime Minister Tony Blair, ridiculed Coleman and rejected as "utterly preposterous" accusations that he profited from the defunct oil-for-food program.
Galloway was questioned as part of the subcommittee's examination of how Iraq's former government used oil to reward politicians, particularly from Russia, France and Britain, under the U.N. program that was meant to protect the Iraqi people from the harsh effects of sanctions on Saddam's government.
Coleman said Galloway had been "anything but straight with the Congress and the American people."
The report, which included copies of banking documents and wire transfers, said that Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman and a friend of Galloway's, received money in connection with an oil allocation and transferred "a significant portion of that money" to Galloway's wife and to the Mariam Appeal fund.
British MP George Galloway answers questions from journalists in east London, October 25, 2005. Galloway on Tuesday angrily rejected new U.S. accusations that he profited from the U.N. oil-for-food programme for Iraq. The flamboyant parliamentarian, an outspoken opponent of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, challenged Congressmen to charge him with perjury and pledged to fly out to Washington on the next plane to defend himself. (Toby Melville/Reuters)
Republican Senator Norm Coleman, then a candidate for the Senate, argues a point during a debate with fellow candidate, Democrat Walter Mondale, in November 2002. British MP George Galloway has challenged the United States to charge him with perjury after he was accused of lying to a Senate committee, led by Senator Coleman, over the UN oil-for-food programme in Iraq.(AFP/File/Craig Lassig)
Come on over and prove your case Al Georgie.
Galloway....Kofi Annan....they all were Saddam's stooges who took money gleefully as they supported a mass murderer.
Paul Volker, chairman of the Independent Inquiry Committee into the United Nations Oil for Food Program, testifies on overhaul of the U. N. on Capitol Hill Tuesday, Oct. 18, 2005, before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. (AP Photo/Dennis Cook)
What does MP stand for?
Former French Interior Minister Charles Pasqua listens to a journalist's question during a press conference in Paris, Monday, Oct. 17, 2005. Pasqua denied having received 'anything' from toppled Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein under the cover of the Oil for Food program. (AP Photo/Jacques Brinon)
French magistrate Philippe Courroye arrives at the financial magistrates' court in Paris, October 12, 2005 where police are detaining Jean-Bernard Merimee, a former French ambassador to the U.N. Security Council for questioning. Police have detained Merimee for questioning in a corruption inquiry over the U.N.-run oil-for-food program in Iraq, a judicial source said on Tuesday. Merimee was taken in by police on Monday over allegations he may have benefited from oil supplies allocated under the program by former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, the source said. REUTERS/Franck Prevel
MP= Member of Parliament
Thank you,
That's been bugging me.
An MP is a member of Parliament.
Can someone please remind me again why we should give a tinker's damn what George Galloway thinks about anything?
But you knew that already.
Galloway doth protest too much...
3rd rate acting aside George, you are caught. Pinched. Nabbed. Just the first of many tho, you'll have a lot of company.
That's one MP I'd like to hand over to some MPs (Military Police) :^D
MP Minister of Parliament in the House of Commons
similar to our House..
and
House of Lords
is equivalent of our Senate
I think
Gitmo him.
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