Regards, Ivan
Posted on 04/25/2003 5:27:18 PM PDT by MadIvan
Associates of George Galloway earned £500,000 from the worldwide sale of Tony Benn's pre-war interview with Saddam Hussein.
The exclusive - Saddam's first interview with a Western figure for 12 years - was secured by Arab TV (ATV), a newly established satellite channel based in London.
The channel had been set up by Ron McKay, a Scottish journalist and long-term friend of Mr Galloway, and was financed by Fawaz Zureikat, the Jordanian businessman linked to the MP.
But ATV did not broadcast the footage itself. The channel never went on air and its offices in the West End are now closed and the telephone lines disconnected.
However, Mr Benn's interview with the Iraqi dictator was sold to several outlets. Channel 4 News paid £50,000 for exclusive British rights while CBS secured North American rights for an undisclosed sum.
APTN - the broadcasting arm of Associated Press - struck a deal for global syndication rights to the film. According to Roddy Mansfield, an ATV producer based in Baghdad who was involved in arranging the interview, "a multi-million pound licensing agreement" was reached.
But Mr McKay has claimed in an interview with The Scotsman that the sale of the Benn-Saddam interview netted less than £500,000. Despite his contacts at the highest levels with the former regime in Baghdad, Mr Galloway has consistently denied any involvement with ATV's Saddam exclusive.
The MP and Mr McKay first met in Beirut in 1978 when the former was on a political tour of Palestinian refugee camps and the latter was working as a newspaper stringer. Their friendship has survived 25-year careers in journalism and politics. Mr Galloway is listed at Companies House as one of three shareholders in Mr McKay's business AVL Media Ltd in its 2001 accounts.
Another Galloway link to the failed satellite channel was the presence of Stuart Halford - ATV's administrative director. Mr Halford accompanied Mr Benn on his flight to Baghdad to meet Saddam.
Mr Halford is also the former director of the Mariam Appeal, Mr Galloway's campaign to raise money to help a sick Iraqi child, and was the official contact for the Great Britain Iraq Society, which arranged some of the MP's trips to Baghdad.
The House of Commons register of members' interests lists Mr Halford as a member of staff, sponsored by Mr Galloway. The MP's office said yesterday that Mr Halford was currently "on sabbatical".
Another figure frequently seen at the offices of ATV, was Stuart Christie, a Scottish anarchist jailed in the Sixties for his part in a plot to assassinate the Spanish dictator Gen Franco.
Mr Christie is an old friend of Mr McKay and now lives in East Sussex from where he publishes his own and other anarchist writings. He also worked at East, the newspaper established by Mr Galloway and Mr Halford with funding from Benazir Bhutto's government in Pakistan.
ATV ceased to operate following the arrest of Zureikat in March during a round-up of pro-Saddam activists by the Jordanian authorities. Representatives of ATV are believed to have travelled to Amman a number of times to lobby for Zureikat's release.
Neither Mr McKay nor Mr Halford returned calls yesterday. Mr Christie, contacted at his home, said: "I've nothing to say."
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
Regards, Ivan
Four blue folders, each stamped with the Iraqi eagle, lay inside. Opening the first, I happened upon George Galloway's letter nominating Fawaz Zureikat as his representative in Baghdad. Another folder contained a letter from Sir Edward Heath thanking the Iraqi representative in London for attending a luncheon in Salisbury.
Two more box files were labelled "Britain". Others were labelled "United States", "Security Council" and "France". Each appeared to contain all the appropriate documents that had crossed the desk of an Iraqi foreign minister.
I wonder if Koffi and the UN are going to DEMAND to have those documents returned to them.
Man, you could make a whole new deck of playing cards.
Chirac would be the Queen of Hearts.
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