Back Towards The Locus

I’m a bit behind in noting this, but the BAE lobbyist Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly – whose house was raided in September – has been arrested in Austria on charges of bribery and money laundering.

“Mensdorff-Pouilly is being questioned in connection with a €13m (£11.6m) payment allegedly made to him by BAE, for whom he had been a consultant for 16 years. Documents which have emerged in the case link BAE to secret payments made to an intermediary company called Valurex, in Switzerland.”

Valurex was “a secretive Swiss company” run by the intensely private “White Sultan” Timothy Landon, and worked in consultancy and “management of participations“. Landon was a Brigadier, whose arms and oil deal brokering brought him a £500m fortune and a property portfolio of 50,000 acres. Valurex appears to have gone into voluntary liquidation in January 2004, and finished around April 2005.

The Guardian reported last year that…

“According to the documents, Valurex was used in turn to engage an Austrian count (Mensdorff-Pouilly), who promoted controversial BAE fighter sales to the Czech government.

According to the documents published this week from Czech sources, Brig Landon’s company Valurex is also promoting sales by BAE throughout eastern Europe, to Hungary, Bulgaria and Slovakia. More than £4m was allegedly paid to Valurex, starting in 2003. “We are not guilty of corrupt practices,” Brig Landon’s lawyers said yesterday.”

I should be sparklingly, blindingly clear that these remain nothing more than allegations. While it’s easy to draw inferences from secrecy – and secrecy in the oil or arms trade invites, or even demands suspicion – lots of perfectly law-abiding people just like their privacy

“Lawyers Schillings, acting on behalf of mercenary commander Tim Spicer, persuaded my publisher to pull out of publishing my new book, The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known. Tim Spicer has made millions from the war in Iraq, and the UK has become notorious for the ability of the rich to close down criticism because of the massive costs – often hundreds of thousands of pounds – of defending a legal action.

There is access to the courts in big libel cases only for the ultra-rich. So much so that just a simple letter like this http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/Schillings.pdf can kill a book. This process is known in the trade as “Chilling”. Schillings are the acknowledged leaders in chilling.

But the law was formulated in an age when a limited number of printing presses were the only means of mass communication. Not only does this not apply in the digital age, but by using the “Streisland effect” we can make sure that any attempt at “Chilling” results in ten times more people actually reading the book. Eventually this will discourage clients from using firms like Schillings, and hopefully put the leeches of repression out of business.

So as a lesson to Schillings and their potential clients, here is The Catholic Orangemen of Togo and Other Conflicts I Have Known. I am making it available across the internet, absolutely free to read.”

Rather excitingly, you may now download the full copy of Craig Murray’s The Catholic Orangemen of Togo (pdf).

“The book is an autobiographical prequel to Murder in Samarkand and covers the period 1998 to 2002. It exposes the links between blood diamonds, crime and British mercenary involvement in Africa. it argues that the disregard Tony Blair showed for both British and international law in dealing with Sierra Leone prefigured the disaster of Iraq. It also covers my role in the dawn of democracy in Ghana.

More importantly, it is intended in an entertaining way to present questions of African development, drawing on thirty year’s practical experience. I am deeply critical of current fashionable doctrines in the field of overseas aid. I hope it will inform and entertain as Murder in Samarkand did, but on a different set of issues.”

It’s a very good book; a memoir written in a deft, easy style. As an insider’s perspective – an honest insider’s perspective, no less – into the Foreign Office and international development it’s both entertaining and coherently insightful (including, I should add, to the relatively uninformed such as mey cousin).

The greed, cynicism and vapidity that’s so corrupted the Labour administration has been skewered many times before, but here Murray observes the beginnings, in the first fulsome embraces with the “private military” and “defence industry”. As good as anyone, he captures the institutional dishonesty at the centre of today’s political maneuverings.

If you’re feeling particularly generous – or just can’t stand reading from the screen – you can buy a hard copy direct from Craig, and even get it signed.

“More than £100m was secretly paid by the arms company BAE to sell warplanes to South Africa, according to allegations in a detailed police dossier seen by the Guardian yesterday.

The leaked evidence from South African police and the British Serious Fraud Office quotes a BAE agent recommending “financially incentivising” politicians.”

Ah, I love wading through this sort of shit; it’s like Tom Wolfe rendered into cappuccino journalism. Can you imagine the meeting where some penguined putz suggested this idea? Would anyone have been shocked or would they have just nodded approval and headed for the water cooler?

Now, let’s not forget the stirring words of the tawdry Shadow Defence Secretary…

“I don’t think we support our defence industry enough…”

These guys must sleep beside medicine cabinets and go to work rattling.

“British investigations into BAE, Britain’s biggest arms company, appear to have revived today after it was disclosed that a key BAE agent has been raided.

Investigators from the Serious Fraud Office arranged for the agent, Count Alfons Mensdorff-Pouilly, to be raided in Austria.”

Yup, he was named on Swedish state television after documents suggested that he’d been offered £40m in exchange for promoting BAE products. The good Count had managed to stay inconspicuous by, er, buying a Castle and becoming a Laird.

The Spokesman for the Austrian prosecutors has said that:

“Quite a lot of documents were seized and transmitted to the SFO. The SFO and Austrian prosecutors are studying the material.”

Meanwhile, Swedish prosecutors have begun their own inquiries into bribery claims surrounding the £5billion sale of Saab Gripen fighter planes to South Africa. Andrew Feinstein, a former MP who resigned after a previous investigation was botched, has claimed that ANC officials were beneficiaries.

Anyway, Liam Fox, you were saying…

So, Liam Fox attended a BAE-sponsored debate recently and declared that “I don’t think we support our defence industry enough“. If giving corporations billions and attempting to keep them above the law isn’t enough for you then what sort of groin-gazing subservience would be?

This sort of effluent is to be expected, however, as Fox has been a staunch supporter of the defence industry. Two years ago, despite the admirable dissent of the Liberal Democrats, he praised the decision to drop the SFO investigation into the Al Yamamah contracts, thereby putting an afro-wig on the Tories’ claimed opposition to Labour corruption.

Srsly, guys, I like this country. Don’t make me move to a seastead.

Last month I wrote a post regarding the decision of the House of the Lords to uphold the cancellation of an inquiry into the arms deals between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems. Now, the Sunday Times is claiming that BAE are to supply 48-70 Eurofighters to the Saudi armed forces, in a deal worth around £20 billion.

“Senior defence-industry sources said last week the negotiations, which have been under way for some months, have been given added impetus by a controversial House of Lords decision last month.”

BAE has granted some very welcome clarification by describing the report as “speculative” and stating “Saudi Arabia is a customer with which we have a long and valued relationship and, like all valued customers, we will continue to support its requirements as and when they arise“.

Yes, feel free to wave back, children.

Via Blairwatch, I find this article from Africa Confidential, which alleges that BAE have been edging funds towards Zimbabwe:

“Britain’s BAE Systems, the world’s fourth biggest arms company, has paid over £25 million (US$49.5 mn.) to a company whose majority Zimbabwean shareholder is a long-time business ally of President Robert Mugabe’s regime. The multiple investigations into BAE’s role in the affair, which appear to be nearing conclusion, are likely to have serious political repercussions in Britain and South Africa.

The recipient of the payments was British Virgin Islands-registered Kayswell Services, whose signatories include majority shareholder John Bredenkamp, Jules Pelissier and Graham Andrews, according to company records seen by Africa Confidential. BAE made the payments in mid-2003 through its Red Diamond Trading subsidiary, also registered in the British Virgin Islands. Within a year, Kayswell had transferred more than £10 mn. to Bredenkamp…

Through his network of military equipment companies, such as Aviation Consulting Services and Raceview, Bredenkamp became an important supplier to the Zimbabwe Defence Force and a supporter of Emmerson Mnangagwa, the Chairman of the Joint Operation Command (AC Vol 49 No 15). Bredenkamp has indefinite leave to remain in Britain. ACS, which is registered in both Britain and Zimbabwe, was the Southern African agent for BAE and Italy’s Agusta military aviation company.

However, Bredenkamp’s spokesman said his client had not ‘to the best of my knowledge supplied military equipment to the Zimbabwe government since European Union sanctions were introduced (in February 2002).’ BAE’s payments to its agents are being investigated in several jurisdictions. Richard Alderman, the Director of Britain’s Serious Fraud Office, which has been under fire since it halted an investigation into a BAE arms deal with Saudi Arabia, pledged on 30 July to reinforce efforts to conclude its investigations into BAE’s £1.6 billion deal with South Africa. Bredenkamp denies he played any role in the BAE arms deal, but SFO and Ministry of Defence officials raided his offices in Berkshire in October 2006.”

The House of Lords has ruled that Tony Blair and the SFO acted not merely lawfully but actually “courageously” in halting an inquiry into an arms deal between Saudi Arabia and BAE Systems, Europe’s biggest defence contractor. The inquiry was cancelled after threats from Saudi Arabian authorities.

Lord Justice Moses ruled that the cancellation was unlawful, and declared that, in the face of threats, it was an “outrage“. Lord Goldsmith, who announced the discontinuation of the SFO inquiry, attacked this ruling, and it was appealed against.

Today’s ruling overturns that of Moses, as Lord Bingham has announced that the SFO were both correct and right to step down in the face of an “ugly and obviously unwelcome” threat. Bingham stated that:

“What determined the decision was the director’s judgment that the public interest in saving British lives outweighed the public interest in pursuing BAE to conviction.”

Let’s rewind back so as to briefly consider the original charges.

In 1992, the UK National Audit Office investigated the Al Yamamah deals. It was a record trade, with Britain supplying arms to Saudi Arabia and receiving hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil per day in return. The leading contractor was BAE.

The investigation apparently found “no evidence of fraud or corruption“, and yet remains the only NAO report ever to be withheld.

In September 2003, the Guardian alleged that Sir Richard Evans, the chairman of BAE, “may have been personally complicit in the operation of a £20m “slush fund” designed to bribe Saudi officials“. The paper obtained this information from a letter sent to Sir Kevin Tebbit, the secretary at the Ministry of Defence, by Rosalind Wright, then head of the SFO, as well as a number of documents.

In the letter, Ms Wright told Tebbitt that BAE executives may have been taking money from funds, and said that:

“According to [an ex-employee], the chairman of BAE, Sir Richard Evans, has been made aware of it, but either is prepared to tolerate it or, conceivably, is in some way complicit”.

The Guardian claimed that BAE had, for fifteen years, been using funds to “sweeten” Saudi officials connected to the Al Yamamah deals. Allegations included the provision of prostitutes, sports cars, yachts and cup final tickets, while an internal BAE security report made reference to “sex and bondage with Saudi princes“.

Eventually, it was claimed that £1bn had been channelled through the US bank account of Prince Bandar “with the knowledge and authorisation of Ministry of Defence officials under the Blair government and its predecessors“. It was also alleged that a whistleblower attempted to release details in 2001, but was blocked by the MoD.

Following these accusations, the millions of pounds of governmental subsidies given to BAE came under scrutiny.

Initially, the Saudi Arabian ambassador said that the administration were “shocked to hear of the allegations“. In December 2006, however, Prince Bandar threatened that if the accusations were investigated, his nation would withdraw their diplomatic and intelligence co-operation. He warned that this would lead to “another 7/7” and the loss of “British lives on British streets“. The inquiry was cancelled, and Blair accepted “full responsibility“.

Seemingly due to our dependence upon a tyrannical dictatorship, none of the above will be investigated.

A hat tip to Septicisle.