Galloway inquiry wants Saddam deputy to testify

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BRITISH diplomats in Baghdad have asked Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s former deputy prime minister, to help an investigation into allegations that George Galloway was given cash by Saddam Hussein under the Oil-for-Food programme. The diplomats made the secret approach through Mr Aziz’s lawyer this week on behalf of Parliament’s so-called “sleaze buster”. The lawyer, Badie Izzat Arief, claimed that they offered to try and secure Mr Aziz immunity from prosecution on any charges arising from the Oil-for-Food scandal.

Embassy officials want to meet Mr Aziz, 70, in the US-run detention centre where he is held with other top members of Saddam’s regime to put a series of questions from Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards. Sir Philip is investigating claims that the MP for Bethnal Green & Bow took money under the UN Oil-for-Food programme — a charge that Mr Galloway strenuously denies and about which he has already successfully sued and won damages from one national newspaper.

Mr Arief told The Times that his client has been interrogated 312 times by the CIA and UN investigators since his arrest in April 2003, but this was the first British approach.“We were surprised to hear from the British, but let’s see what they want,” Mr Arief said. “The main question I believe is whether money was paid by anyone in Iraq to Mr Galloway’s charity, the Mariam Appeal.” He said that US officials had asked his client more than 100 detailed questions about Western politicians alleged to have received money from Saddam, but none about Mr Galloway.

“The CIA haven’t asked about Mr Galloway. They are obsessed with Jacques Chirac. Mr Aziz told them: ‘I find it strange you want revenge on Chirac. He is the respected President of France, so I regard the question as insulting.’ ”Mr Aziz, who also served as Saddam’s Foreign Minister, spent a Christmas holiday with Mr Galloway, in Baghdad, in 1999. Mr Galloway described him as “an eminent diplomat and intellectual person”.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2156507,00.html