British investigators were ordered by the attorney-general Lord Goldsmith to conceal from international anti-bribery watchdogs the existence of payments totalling more than £1bn to a Saudi prince, the Guardian can disclose.
The money was paid into bank accounts controlled by Prince Bandar for his role in setting up BAE Systems with Britain’s biggest ever arms deal. Details of the transfers to accounts in the US were discovered by officers from the Serious Fraud Office during its long-running investigation into BAE. But its inquiry was halted suddenly last December.
The Guardian has established that the attorney-general warned colleagues last year that “government complicity” in the payment of the sums was in danger of being revealed if the SFO probe was allowed to continue.
The abandonment of the inquiry caused an outcry which provoked the world’s anti-corruption watchdog, the OECD, to launch its own investigation into the circumstances behind the decision.
But when OECD representatives sought to learn more about the background to the move at private meetings in January and March they were not given full disclosure by British officials, according to sources.
[...]
The Guardian‘s disclosure of British government complicity in the alleged payment of £1bn to Prince Bandar caused international concern yesterday, with Tony Blair taking a bullish position when questioned at the G8.Standing beside George Bush, a close family friend of former US ambassador Prince Bandar, Mr Blair said it would have “wrecked” the relationship with Saudi Arabia if he had allowed investigations to go on. “This investigation, if it had gone ahead, would have involved the most serious allegations and investigation being made of the Saudi royal family,” he said.
“My job is to give advice as to whether that is a sensible thing in circumstances where I don’t believe the investigation would have led to anywhere except to the complete wreckage of a vital interest to our country.”
Neither Mr Blair nor the Ministry of Defence made any attempt to deny the allegations revealed by the Guardian.
Okay, now here’s the funny part:
Prince Bandar last night issued a statement through his lawyers categorically denying that payments made to Riggs Bank in Washington “represented improper secret commissions or ‘backhanders’”.
He said the payments were made to Saudi ministry of defence and aviation (MODA) accounts of which he was a signatory. “Any monies paid out of those accounts were exclusively for purposes approved by MODA.”
He said the accounts were regularly audited by the Saudi ministry of finance and BAE payments were “pursuant to the al-Yamamah contracts”. He added: “At no stage have MODA or the Saudi Arabian ministry of finance identified any irregularities in the conduct of the accounts.”
BAE last night issued a statement claiming there was full government complicity in any payments it had made with regard to the al-Yamamah deal, which was signed in 1985. The company said transactions were made with the “express approval” of the British government.
“All such payments made under those agreements were made with the express approval of both the Saudi and UK governments”.
What’s funny is that you have to believe the prince and BAE. If Prince Bandar had stolen “more than £1bn” from the Saudi royal family, he would have been found with both hands cut off, his testicles pickled in a jar, and his penis sliced off and stuffed into his mouth (one big nullus to cover all of that).
What’s weird is why the hell would the Saudis do this? If they want to put two billion dollars of their own money into accounts with the Riggs Bank that would be managed and audited by the ministry of defence and aviation and the ministry of finance, why do all this skullduggery which looks so much like bribery and kickbacks?
Maybe precisely because it looks so much like bribery and kickbacks?
Maybe so that they would have something to blackmail the British government with?
Because the Saudis did nothing wrong, nothing they have to worry about anyone finding out. But they did get the British government to agree to do all kinds of very wrong things. Things they would very much prefer nobody ever found out.
Why should we care? I give you TPM‘s Josh Marshall:
This story relates to arms deal in the UK. But I’d be surprised if it ended on that side of the Atlantic.
Yes, I’m thinking exactly the same thing you are: the special dispensation which led to “the evacuation of approximately 140 Saudis just two days after 9/11″ (and let’s absolve Josh of all complicity, he never suggests anything along these lines):
Let’s go back to Sept. 13, 2001, and look at several scenes that were taking place simultaneously. Three thousand people had just been killed. The toxic rubble of the World Trade Center was still ablaze. American airspace was locked down. Not even Bill Clinton and Al Gore, who were out of the country, were allowed to fly home. And a plane bearing a replacement heart for a desperately ill Seattle man was forced down short of its destination by military aircraft. Not since the days of the Wright Brothers had American skies been so empty.
But some people desperately wanted to fly out of the country. That same day, Prince Bandar bin Sultan bin Abdul Aziz, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States and a long-time friend of the Bush family, dropped by the White House. He and President George W. Bush went out to the Truman Balcony for a private conversation. We do not know everything they discussed, but the Saudis themselves say that Prince Bandar was trying to orchestrate the evacuation of scores of Saudis from the United States despite the lockdown on air travel.
Meanwhile, a small plane in Tampa, Fla. took off for Lexington, Ky. According to former Tampa cop Dan Grossi and former FBI agent Manny Perez, who were on the flight to provide security, the passengers included three young Saudis. Given the national security crisis, both Grossi and Perez were astonished that they were allowed to take off. The flight could not have taken place without White House approval.
The plane taking off from Tampa was the first of at least eight aircraft that began flying across the country, stopping in at least 12 American cities and carrying at least 140 passengers out of the country over the next week or so. The planes included a lavishly customized Boeing 727 airliner that was equipped with a master bedroom suite, huge flat-screen TVs, and a bathroom with gold-plated fixtures. Many of the passengers were high-ranking members of the royal House of Saud.
At the time, the accusation made against the Bush White House was that the close family connections between the House of Bush and the House of Saud were the reason why this hush-hush evacuation was permitted. What if they had Bush by the balls instead (nullus)? What if they have always had the U.S. government by the balls? Not because of the oil they control, but because of bribery-kickback schemes like the BAE one?