Galloway faces new allegation over misuse of charity funds

THE Attorney-General is considering action against the money-raising appeal set up by George Galloway which is at the centre of allegations that he was bankrolled by Saddam Hussein. As the Labour MP began legal action for libel over the claims that he had received £375,000 a year from the Baghdad regime, The Times has learnt that Lord Goldsmith, QC, is studying a separate complaint against him. It is based on an article in The Times showing that Mr Galloway promised to spend all the money raised by the Mariam Appeal on treating sick Iraqi children, but later used it to fund his travelling expenses.

The Mariam Appeal is highlighted in the purported Iraqi intelligence documents found in a Baghdad ministry that appear to show that the MP received the equivalent of £375,000 a year from Saddam’s oil revenues.

Mr Galloway’s future as a Labour MP was on the line as his party announced an inquiry into the “extremely serious” allegations.

But the MP for Glasgow Kelvin unleashed a media offensive against the claims, which were based on papers allegedly found in the wreckage of the office of the Iraqi Foreign Minister.

An alleged confidential memorandum sent to Saddam by his head of intelligence suggested the MP had asked a secret agent for a greater share from the Oil-for-Food programme. But Saddam rejected the alleged request from Mr Galloway as unaffordable, it was reported last night. A letter that The Daily Telegraph claims was sent from Saddam’s chief aid to senior party figures says: “The belief is that . . . even using Western methods (he) needs exceptional support which we cannot afford and I do not think we can promise to do that if we consider it according to our policy.”

Describing the papers as a forgery and a smear, Mr Galloway announced that he had instructed solicitors to issue a claim against The Daily Telegraph, which printed the allegations.

Charles Moore, Editor of the Telegraph, said: “We stand fully behind our story.” He said the paper “gave Mr Galloway full opportunity to answer the issues raised”. He said he had not received a statement of claim from the MP.

Mr Galloway has been one of the Government’s greatest critics over Iraq. The allegations, if true, would finish him as an MP, but within the Government, Labour and the Conservative Party, there was caution over accepting the claims at face value.

The Foreign Office, which is responsible for the intelligence services, said that it would “welcome sight” of the papers found by the Telegraph to enable its experts to study them, words that suggested that it had no independent corroboration of the allegations.

In a carefully worded statement Ian McCartney, Labour’s chairman, went out of his way not to prejudge what he said were serious allegations.

Mr Galloway is already being investigated by the party over remarks made on Abu Dhabi television describing Tony Blair and President Bush as “wolves” who were attacking Iraq. Even before yesterday’s bombshell it appeared likely that over the next few weeks Hilary Armstrong, the Chief Whip, would propose the withdrawal of the whip from Mr Galloway, thus preventing him being reselected as a Labour candidate. He said that he will stand as an independent for Glasgow Central should this happen. His current seat will disappear due to boundary changes at the next election.

Mr Galloway, speaking to The Times from Portugal, where he is on holiday, said that he had never solicited nor accepted any financial assistance from the Iraqi regime.

The documents suggested that, while he was campaigning for the Mariam Appeal, Mr Galloway was conducting a relationship with Iraqi intelligence behind the scenes.

Mr Galloway said that if he had had any dealings with the Oil-for-Food programme, the documentation would be with the United Nations in New York. “The Oil-for-Food programme is run not in Baghdad, but in New York at the United Nations, so they (The Telegraph) are going to have to show the court where the United Nations sent me my cheque, when they did so, why they did so,” he said. “If I had any business dealings with the Oil-for-Food programme, the evidence is with the United Nations in New York.”

The Attorney-General is also looking at a different issue. The Times reported that Mr Galloway started the Mariam Appeal in 1998 with a plea on House of Commons notepaper to potential donors, accompanied by a postcard of Mariam Hamza, 4, an Iraqi girl whose leukaemia was blamed by the MP on uranium-tipped weapons used by the allies in the first Gulf War.

“The Mariam Appeal has had to guarantee the costs of her treatment which could cost up to £50,000. The appeal’s target is £100,000 with the balance being sent back to Iraq in medicines and medical supplies for the children she has had to leave behind,” Mr Galloway wrote.

In fact, the appeal became a broad-based campaign against sanctions, against Israel and in favour of the “Palestinian intifada”. The Register of Members’ Interests shows that Mr Galloway used its funds to pay for 14 overseas trips to 15 countries between September 1999 and January 2002, mostly including flights and hotel bills. He visited Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, Hungary, Belgium, New York and Romania. The appeal also paid for him to go to Iraq eight times.

The Treasury Solicitor’s Department is understood to have been asked by the Attorney-General to begin a fact-finding exercise based on the article in The Times. “We are talking to the Charity Commision about whether anything further should be done,” the Attorney-General’s spokesman continued. “It’s at a very, very early stage.”

Mr Galloway said on BBC 2’s Newsnight that the campaign’s accounts would be thrown open for the first time.

He also acknowledged that he had written a “To whom it may concern letter” on his Commons-headed notepaper to certify that a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, was his representative in Baghdad. He said it was a “remarkable coincidence” that a copy had turned up in the same file as a letter said to be from the head of Iraqi Intelligence.

Mr Galloway said: “I have always worked on the assumption, and I think it is a safe one, that the intelligence services know everything about me. They would be aware of such transactions. The fact that there has not been any confirmation from them of this story may well be because they know it is not true,” he said.

Mr Zureikat, 49, said that he acted as co-ordinator for Mr Galloway’s Mariam Appeal in Jordan and Iraq, but denied that he had acted as a broker to any oil deal between Saddam and the MP.

He said: “I was co-ordinator for Galloway’s Mariam Appeal and for all of his work connected to Iraq and his efforts to lobby for lifting the sanctions, but I never traded in oil and never received any (Iraqi) money for Galloway.”

Mr Zureikat, however, shares a telephone number in Jordan with a company that is a major dealer in Iraqi oil — Middle East Advanced Semiconductor — whose directors include a Ziad Abdullah K Zureikat. Diplomats said that this company has lifted 8.8 million barrels of Iraqi oil since registering with the United Nations Oil-for-Food programme in August 2000.

Mr Galloway, on BBC Radio 2, said the Telegraph would not be able to produce a scintilla of evidence “that a single loaf of bread has been sold to Iraq by me or a single barrel of oil has been sold by me from Iraq. I have never seen a barrel of oil, I have never owned one, I have never bought one or sold one, I have never so much as sold a loaf of bread either.”

Mr Galloway said if he had wanted money from the regime he would have asked Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, directly and not gone through a “minion”. He conceded that he could have been in Baghdad with Mr Aziz for Christmas 1999, just over a week before the intelligence memo is dated.

Talk about a non-denial denial.

Mr Galloway said if he had wanted money from the regime he would have asked Tariq Aziz, the Deputy Prime Minister, directly and not gone through a “minion”.

Um, George, that doesn't sound too good coming from a Labourite. Know what I mean?

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-655974,00.html

GEORGE GALLOWAY is notoriously sensitive and secretive about who paid for his globetrotting campaign to lift United Nations sanctions against Saddam Hussein.
Even close associates cannot say with confidence who was really paying for the Mariam Appeal and who was benefiting financially from its immeasurable pot of cash.

Mr Galloway chose not to register the appeal as a charity, so avoiding the scrutiny and transparency that would reassure the public about who was subsidising his foreign travel.

He said: “The Mariam Appeal is a political campaign that was involved in a life-or-death struggle against the might of the British and American State. It had no obligation to open its activities to its enemies and it did not do so and will not do so.”

The appeal was opened in 1998 in the name of Mariam Hamza, a four-year-old Iraqi girl whose leukaemia was blamed by the MP on uranium-tipped weapons used by the Allies in the first Gulf War.

Mr Galloway made a promise to potential donors. He wrote on House of Commons paper pledging that, after paying for Mariam’s treatment in a Glasgow hospital, the rest of the money would go to medical aid for Iraqi children. In fact, according to the Register of Members’ Interests, Mr Galloway spent the Mariam Appeal’s cash on 14 foreign trips to 15 countries, including eight visits to Iraq.

The appeal did not restrict itself to healing sick children. It became a pressure group campaigning to lift, and claiming to bust, sanctions imposed on Saddam’s regime, while supporting the “Palestinian intifada” and a boycott of Israel.

Even close supporters cannot shed much light on its finances. Sabah al-Mukhtar, from the Arab Lawyers’ Network in London, became vice-president of the appeal and joined Mr Galloway on a publicity-seeking bus trip from Westminster to Baghdad.

When the bus arrived in November 1999, Mr Galloway made a long speech describing Mr al-Mukhtar as “our comrade in arms” and hailing Saddam’s Deputy Prime Minister, Tariq Aziz, as “my dear, dear friend”.

Mr Galloway has identified Fawaz Zukeirat as one of the main financial sponsors of the Mariam Appeal, along with the governments of the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The MP said the appeal received about £1 million in five years, more than half of that from the UAE Government. Mr al-Mukhtar, a former legal adviser to Iraq’s national oil company, told The Times yesterday that the money for the Mariam Appeal had come mainly from the ruler of Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan, with small donations such as £5 and £2 from members of the public.

The Mariam Appeal was publicly backed by Burhan al-Chalabi, an Iraq-born British property tycoon who owns an £8.5 million mansion block in South Kensington, London.

Mr al-Chalabi was one of the largest donors to Michael Portillo’s campaign for the Conservative Party leadership and says his ambition is to enter the House of Lords.

His office contains photographs of him shaking hands with William Hague and Mr Portillo, with Muslim Association of Britain placards saying “Stop the War — Freedom for Palestine”. He declined to discuss the appeal’s funding. “It’s better to speak to George about this,” he said.

Mr Galloway started an appeal, the Great Britain-Iraq Society, in June 2000, charging £25 to join. It paid for seven overseas visits by the MP, including four trips to Iraq. The society also sponsored Kerry Pollard, the Labour MP for St Albans, on a visit to Iraq. The MP is understood to have been warned by Labour whips to beware who was really funding the trip. But Mr Pollard was reassured by an official from the society that the money came from subscriptions and well-to-do sponsors.

Mr Galloway, asked about the Mariam Appeal by The Times, said: “I regard you as a whore working for a pimp.”

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