BRITAIN: British MP Mr George Galloway conceded last night that intermediaries in his fund-raising activities could have siphoned off money from Saddam Hussein, but insisted he had never done so.
As the Labour MP fought to counter allegations that he received up to £375,000 a year from the Iraqi regime, Mr Galloway revealed the full amount given to the Mariam Appeal, the organisation he founded to fly a young Iraqi leukaemia victim to Britain for medical treatment and which then became a campaign against Iraqi sanctions, and pledged to release further figures today.
Speaking from his holiday home in Portugal, Mr Galloway said there was a "possibility" that third parties had taken money from the former Iraqi dictator.
He also conceded he was open to criticism for collecting money from what he called "unlikely quarters". But he insisted he personally had received "no money from anybody".
Mr Galloway's comments came after the Daily Telegraph printed documents, discovered in a burnt-out foreign ministry building in Baghdad and purporting to be from an Iraqi spy chief, that suggested he had demanded money from the Iraqi regime under the oil-for-food scheme. "Irrespective of the provenance of the documents, the material in them is false", the MP for Glasgow Kelvin said yesterday.
There was no evidence he had ever traded in oil, or food, or money, Mr Galloway said. "I have not," he insisted.
Yesterday, the allegations intensified as the attorney general, Lord Goldsmith QC, in his capacity as protector of charities, confirmed he was considering whether to investigate claims Mr Galloway had misspent money raised by the Mariam Appeal. It has been alleged that he had spent the money, purportedly intended to treat sick Iraqi children, on extensive travelling expenses. But Lord Goldsmith is taking legal advice to assess if he has the power to investigate the appeal, which has not registered as a charity.
As MPs urged him to throw open the appeal's accounts, Mr Galloway revealed the Mariam Appeal had received about £800,000 over the past four years. More than £500,000 was provided by the United Arab Emirates and about £100,00 by Saudi Arabia.
The bulk of the remainder had been provided by the Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat. The rest came from a number of small donors, Mr Galloway said.
- (Guardian Service)