DIPLOMACY:IRISH DIPLOMATS in Saudi Arabia smuggled in alcohol concealed under false shipping labels to dodge the Islamic state's drink ban, official files reveal.
Department of Foreign Affairs papers from 1977-78 show the Embassy in Jeddah used an Italian company to secretly ship in cases of wine and whiskey using documents marked “preserves or furniture”.
The then ambassador Eamon Ó Tuathail stressed the importance of having liquor available for ministerial visits, and he wrote several letters to the Irish Embassy in Rome to help arrange the secret shipments, using Trieste-based firm Alberti.
“As usual, Alberti should arrange that the boxes inside the containers should be sealed and have no indication on the outside as to contents,” the ambassador wrote to official Billy Hawkes in Rome in February 1978.
“The shipping documents should show ‘furniture’.
“We now have the police sitting outside both the office and residence!”
The diplomat insisted the Embassy needed to stock up on supplies in case a government minister visited. “While it would be pleasant to have an odd drink oneself, I am concerned that we may have a ministerial visit either before or after the summer,” he wrote in an earlier letter in May 1977.
“For that we need liquor. Most Saudis expect to be served alcohol at diplomatic receptions.”
Added to the final sentence was a handwritten note reading: “Ministers also like to be served liquor!”
Mr Ó Tuathail said authorities turn a blind eye to diplomatic imports of drink provided there was no mention of the contents on the shipping documents.
In the 1978 letter, the diplomat referred to a telex note about furniture costs which he sent to Mr Hawkes detailing three payments from separate bank accounts, totalling $13,375.
Other newly released papers show a more complicated side to the world of diplomacy than drinks receptions at the ambassador’s residence.
Among correspondence in the file from the Department of Foreign Affairs was a letter from the Spanish embassy in 1975. It announced the embassy “has the honour to inform the department” that on April 14th a hold-up took place at the branch office of a nearby bank, the Bank of Ireland on Merrion Road.
Gardaí had pursued the offenders and officers in uniform and plain clothes entered the embassy grounds in search of the robbers. While the embassy was grateful to the Garda, “the Spanish embassy would be very grateful if it were possible to have the gardaí instructed to request permission to enter the premises in cases such as the one referred to,” it said.
A handwritten note said “the chief superintendent” had been spoken to about the matter. “He informed me that armed bank robbers entered the embassy grounds followed by gardaí in hot pursuit. He thought that in similar circumstances in future the gardaí might do the same,” the message said.
“I would propose not to reply to the embassy note, but to mention the security considerations to the ambassador or secretary at a suitable opportunity.”
The Turkish embassy in Dublin wrote to the Department of Foreign Affairs in August 1979 and highlighted attacks on various Turkish diplomats around the world by the “Armenian Liberation Army”.In view of the above, it would be “greatly appreciated” if the Department of Foreign Affairs alerted the “competent authorities” to instruct gardaí at the embassy to “exercise utmost vigilance” while on duty.
“The instructions are urgently needed in the case of the ambassador’s residence where the officer on duty has been observed on several instances engaged in conversation with other tenants in the building or dozing off under the staircase,” the message said. – (Additional reporting: PA)
