The secret Whitehall telegram that reveals truth

[spindrifter]

behind controversial Saudi arms deal

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Saturday October 28, 2006
The Guardian


The government was yesterday scrambling to recover secret documents containing evidence suggesting corrupt payments were made in Britain's biggest arms deal. The documents, published in full today by the Guardian, detail for the first time how the price of Tornado warplanes was inflated by £600m in the 1985 Al Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia. A telegram with the details from the head of the Ministry of Defence's sales unit had been placed in the National Archives. Yesterday it was hastily withdrawn by officials who claimed its release had been "a mistake".

Sir Colin Chandler's telegram was sent from Riyadh, where he was arranging the sale of 72 Tornados and 30 Hawk warplanes on behalf of the British arms firm BAE. It revealed that their cost had been inflated by nearly a third in a deal with Saudi defence minister Prince Sultan.
Sultan, who is crown prince, "has a corrupt interest in all contracts", according to a dispatch from the then British ambassador Willie Morris published in a recent Commons committee report. An accompanying Ministry of Defence briefing paper prepared for the then prime minister Margaret Thatcher describes Prince Sultan as "not highly intelligent ... He has prejudices, is inflexible and imperious, and drives a hard bargain". The Al Yamamah deal, worth £43bn in total, has long been the subject of allegations of secret commissions to Lady Thatcher's son Mark, and to several members of the Saudi royal family. All those involved have always denied the allegations.

The telegram from Sir Colin, now the head of budget airline easyJet, was unearthed by Nicholas Gilby, an anti-arms trade campaigner. After the Guardian showed it to the Ministry of Defence, officials were dispatched to the archives in Kew, where they loaded the files into a van and returned them to Whitehall's vaults. Campaigners had already copied all the papers and are planning to publish them on the internet.

<more>

http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foi/story/0,,1933764,00.html

[lovuian]

1. Its absolutely incestuous and how they try to steal from each other

and they use Britains people tax dollars

disgusting
Theives thats all they are Bank robbers

[SeaBob]

2. Interesting supplementary links.