Bae Systems, ‘paid actresses to entertain Saudi prince’ Options

[Hadi]

BAE Systems ‘paid actresses to entertain Saudi prince’

(IMG:http://www.timesonline.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00154/TIM131WC02_154420a.jpg)

Glamorous hostesses were allegedly paid tens of thousands of pounds from a BAE Systems slush fund to attend lavish parties where a Saudi prince and his entourage were guests of honour.

According to documents seen by The Sunday Times, the money was paid to Anouska Bolton Lee and Karajan Mallinder to meet mortgage, rent, credit card and council tax bills.

The two women went to parties in a penthouse suite at the Carlton Tower hotel in Knightsbridge attended by Prince Turki bin Nasser and other senior Saudis involved in the £40 billion al-Yamamah arms deal.

The claims will revive the controversy over the Government’s decision to order the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) to abandon a long-running corruption inquiry, which had been examining BAE’s relationship with the Saudi regime.

The SFO had amassed a wealth of material and, since 2004, had been attempting to piece together the workings of the alleged £60 million slush fund. But the investigation was abandoned last December after consultations between the Prime Minister and Lord Goldsmith, QC, the Attorney-General.

The move followed pressure from Saudi Arabia, which had expressed anger at the SFO inquiry and was threatening to back out of a £10 billion deal to buy Eurofighter jets from BAE.

There were also claims that the Saudis would withdraw cooperation on counter-terrorism and intelligence.

Robert Wardle, the director of the SFO, said that the inquiry had been discontinued because of “the need to safeguard national and international security”.

Lord Goldsmith told Parliament that the investigation had been discontinued in the national interest. But allegations of political interference have persisted, and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has expressed serious concerns over the case and asked for an explanation of the decision to drop it. The OECD also raised worries about “continued shortcomings” in British anticorruption legislation.

The payments to Ms Mallinder and Ms Bolton Lee were said to have been made in 2001 and 2002 and routed through a travel company.

Ms Mallinder, 42, a model and actress, was once engaged to David van Day, the singer in the 1980s pop duo Dollar. Ms Bolton Lee, 29, a former lingerie model, has appeared in a number of acting roles and worked as a presenter on the MTV show Blaggers.

A spokesman for BAE Systems said yesterday: “Throughout the long SFO investigation we were consistent in denying allegations of wrongdoing.

“The SFO has considered a huge volume of material over the course of its investigation which it then decided should be terminated. We are not making any comment on these continued allegations.”

source link


BBC lifts the lid on secret BAE slush fund

With exclusive interviews with three former insiders, BBC Two's flagship business series The Money Programme reveals a secret £60m slush fund used by the UK's leading arms maker, BAE Systems, to grease the wheels of the biggest arms deals in British history.

Prince Turki bin Nasser, a leading member of Saudi Arabia's ruling royal family, was the principal beneficiary of BAE's millions.

For almost 20 years, he was responsible for overseeing the Saudi side of the massive al-Yamamah arms deals, worth billions of pounds to BAE.

While BAE, formerly known as British Aerospace, consistently refuses to acknowledge the existence of their slush fund, in the programme Bribing for Britain? one of the men who lavished luxury on Prince Turki for more than a decade, Peter Gardiner, speaks out for the first time about what he did.

Luxury

Mr Gardiner started working with BAE in 1988. The small travel agency he owned soon became a major conduit for BAE's money, channelling over £7m a year.

Mr Gardiner's job was to lavish luxury on Prince Turki.

On BAE's instructions, he reveals the seemingly endless stream of 5-star hotels, chartered aircraft, luxury limousines, personal security and exotic holidays he would provide for Prince Turki and his entourage.

The Prince's family also benefited royally from BAE's bounty.

Peter Gardiner gave some of the highlights: Prince Turki's wife got a £170,000 Rolls-Royce as a birthday present.

She and her entourage had a chartered Boeing 747 cargo plane laid on to fly home their shopping.

The Prince's son enjoyed a £99,000 skiing trip in Colorado for himself and his friends while the Prince's daughter got a video of her wedding costing almost £200,000.
All paid for by BAE.

Film stars

A three-month summer holiday Mr Gardiner organised for the prince and his family in 2001 cost BAE £2m.


Mr Gardiner: "This is way beyond the life style of most film stars"

"This is way beyond the life style of most film stars," Mr Gardiner tells The Money Programme.

"Film stars were quite often around at the large hotels that we were visiting, but they wouldn't be living in this level of affluence."

Cash

Mr Gardiner was also instructed to provide money; sometimes in cash, sometimes as bank transfers to pay off credit card bills.

The bank transfers, Mr Gardiner recalls, averaged $100,000.

"We didn't actually ask any questions about it," Mr Gardiner says. "We were told to remit the payment and we did so."

Big items or small, the pattern was the same: whatever Prince Turki wanted, Prince Turki got.

And BAE paid.

Councillor

Another insider, Edward Cunningham, also speaking on television for the first time, says he was instructed to look after more junior Saudis officials for BAE.

I wasn't happy about it because I felt that they were probably going to sort of shove it under the carpet

Martin Bromley
Internal BAE investigator

Cunningham found himself laying on lavish helpings of London nightlife, settling gambling bills and arranging prostitutes for young Saudi pilots visiting London on al-Yamamah business.

"Some of them came from the area where I lived," Mr Cunningham told the programme, "which was very embarrassing for me as I was a Labour councillor in that area."

For officials at the Saudi embassy, Mr Cunningham says he offered canteens of gold or silver cutlery which retailed at £1,000 apiece.

"I was inundated by everyone who was of any standing in the embassy," Mr Cunningham said.

"They all wanted gold. They wouldn't take the silver ones."

Visitors

The programme also describes how BAE disguised where their slush fund money was going with the help of Tony Winship, a retired Royal Air Force wing commander and long-standing friend of Prince Turki.


Mr Cunningham: "They all wanted gold. They wouldn't take the silver."
Every month, the wing commander would replace the detailed records documenting the slush fund spending with a single-page invoice.

For August 1995, for example, the invoice simply reads: "Accommodation services and Support for Overseas visitors" with a total charged of "£987,365", giving no clue as to what the money had actually been spent on.

Mr Gardiner says the wing commander did this because "he wanted to keep it very private, very secret, he didn't want prying eyes looking at any of these transactions".

Enquiry

The Money Programme has identified Steve Mogford as the BAE executive who authorised a series of these slush fund invoices.

Mr Mogford is now a director of BAE and chief operating officer of the company.

In the last four months of 1995 alone, the programme reveals, he signed off slush fund invoices worth over £3m.

Mr Mogford is also identified as the BAE executive who met Martin Bromley, an internal BAE investigator, in 1996 and ordered him to stop an enquiry he was then conducting into the slush fund.

Shock

Speaking exclusively to The Money Programme, Mr Bromley says: "I wasn't happy about it because I felt that they were probably going to sort of shove it under the carpet."

"I was a bit shell-shocked when I came out of the meeting, I have to say."

Mr Mogford refused to be interviewed for the programme, as did BAE.

Wing Commander Winship is not answering questions either, nor is his friend Prince Turki bin Nasser.

In a statement, the Saudi Arabian embassy told The Money Programme that they were shocked to hear about these allegations of corrupt practice, adding, that "fraudulent behaviour of any kind is not condoned by the Saudi government or embassy in any way".

In February 2002, the UK Parliament toughened up the law on bribery and corruption, outlawing payments to foreign government officials.

With government investigators now probing the slush fund operation with the help of Peter Gardiner's extensive records, it may get more difficult for BAE to go on avoiding the question: Were they, in fact, "Bribing for Britain"?



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In response to the allegations made by the Money Programme, BAE Systems gave the BBC the following statement:

"BAE Systems is disappointed and surprised that the BBC's Money Programme and other media are repeating nine-year-old allegations that are ill-informed and wrong. The facts are that the Al Yamamah contract, which is the subject of these allegations, is a contract between the governments of the United Kingdom and the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

"BAE Systems can state categorically that there is not now and there has never been in existence what the media refers to as a 'slush fund'. Neither has BAE Systems or any of its officers or employees been involved in false accounting.

"BAE Systems operates in accordance with the laws of the United Kingdom and all other countries in which it operates."


All paid for by BAE.

source

[SaudiArabian]

its rubbish and not true unless they proove this crap by hard evidence like videos or photos

secondly , this is old news. it was posted alot of times before and i understand whats going on in your head when you posted this expired rumors. its because of my stance against hizbulla terrorists.


watch this clip from the movie (around the world in 80 days) starting from 3:58 to 4:59 it shows the progress of rumors and lies in England lol (for fun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vooyhxyde0

[Hadi]

its rubbish and not true unless they proove this crap by hard evidence like videos or photos

secondly , this is old news. it was posted alot of times before and i understand whats going on in your head when you posted this expired rumors. its because of my stance against hizbulla terrorists.
watch this clip from the movie (around the world in 80 days) starting from 3:58 to 4:59 it shows the progress of rumors and lies in England lol (for fun)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vooyhxyde0

firstly thanx for the link. :)

secondly, how do u always knows that every weird news coming from western media about saudis is bullshit and all stuff related to iran or Hizballah is true,i mean is there any general formula for this? i think u r going through patriotic phobia on its last stage. (IMG:style_emoticons/PDFEmotionIconsv10/PakistanFlag.gif)

[platinum786]

Does anyone really care? Who here is naive enough to think these types of things don't happen in the world of big business?

[airomerix]

firstly thanx for the link. :)

secondly, how do u always knows that every weird news coming from western media about saudis is bullshit and all stuff related to iran or Hizballah is true,i mean is there any general formula for this? i think u r going through patriotic phobia on its last stage. (IMG:style_emoticons/PDFEmotionIconsv10/PakistanFlag.gif)

I agree. Saudiarabian u really need to understand facts n figures!

[SaudiArabian]

firstly thanx for the link. :)

secondly, how do u always knows that every weird news coming from western media about saudis is bullshit and all stuff related to iran or Hizballah is true,i mean is there any general formula for this? i think u r going through patriotic phobia on its last stage. (IMG:style_emoticons/PDFEmotionIconsv10/PakistanFlag.gif)

you said it. its because its weird. Prince Turki bin Nasir is an old grandfather and a very decent respectable man. when they claim they hired those women for his pleasure then its nonsense and untrue and they have to proove this allegation and show their evidence to make us believe them.

as for Iran and hizbulla , all i said has its proofs and evidences. i don't collect silly articles written by someone who get paid for it to use them as evidence. instead , i use videos , photos , qoutes or official statements.

[aziqbal]

What has this got to do with Pakistan or military?

[Hadi]

What has this got to do with Pakistan or military?

ahm!i think this section is called global military forum.

[noxiouspython]

Aoa

Why is everyone trying to malign the Saudis all the time...

Now even if it is true - well I agree with Platinum - so what? these kind of things happen - does it mean that the whole Saudi society is currupt and what have you? no - just would mean that this particular individual (or those involved) are. Big deal!

These days - Pakistan and KSA are fair game for all.

w/salaam

[visioninthedark]

Aoa

Why is everyone trying to malign the Saudis all the time...

Now even if it is true - well I agree with Platinum - so what? these kind of things happen - does it mean that the whole Saudi society is currupt and what have you? no - just would mean that this particular individual (or those involved) are. Big deal!

These days - Pakistan and KSA are fair game for all.

w/salaam

Bro ... as long as I and those like me have a breath left in them ... and a drop of blood still in our veins .... Pakistan will never be fair game for anyone ... NEVER! - and that refers to all FOREIGNERS!!

[Saqr]

What has this got to do with Pakistan or military?

...because many PDF members are behind this drama. They want the Saudi EF deal to go down the drain so that the Saudis buy a lot of Rafale, which would then influence countries like Greece, Algeria, Malaysia and our own Pakistan to buy the French fighter. In the end it is for our national defence...don't worry.