Serious Fraud Office to look into BAE link with Pinochet

[emad]

Serious Fraud Office to look into BAE link with Pinochet

David Leigh and Rob Evans
Friday September 16, 2005
The Guardian


The Serious Fraud Office is expected to launch an investigation into disclosures that the arms company BAE secretly paid more than £1m to the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The Guardian revealed yesterday how BAE had been identified in US banking records as routing the payments through front companies between 1997 and last year.

Calls for action were led by the Liberal Democrat leader, Charles Kennedy. He said: "These allegations will be deeply embarrassing for BAE, a leading British company with ready access to Downing Street under this and previous governments and a company which receives significant subsidies from the public purse ... The government needs to send a strong message to British companies that corruption and bribery will not be permitted or excused."


SFO investigators are studying the files relating to Red Diamond Trading, a front company controlled by BAE and registered in the British Virgin Islands. It is alleged that the arms company has been using Red Diamond to channel secret commissions worldwide to agents on arms sales, and may have circumvented laws on corruption and money-laundering.

Susan Hawley, of the anti-corruption group The Cornerhouse, said: "This is an absolutely textbook example of how appallingly complicit Britain is in fomenting corruption and undermining democracy around the world."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/chile/story/0,13755,1571403,00.html

[sattahipdeep]

1. Santiago

by David Leigh, Jonathan Franklin in Santiago and Rob Evans

Augusto Pinochet, the 89-year-old former strongman of Chile and alleged torturer and
murderer, has frequently slipped his pursuers, pleading ill health or relying on protectors
at home in the Chilean military. But now an unexpected nemesis is pursuing him, in the
shape of his tax returns.

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0915-08.htm

:hi: