Princes, Planes and Pay-offs

adayinthelife · June 17, 2007

The full transcript can be read here and the programme can also be viewed from the archive.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/panorama/6745233.stm

JEREMY VINE: Hello, I'm Jeremy Vine, and this is Panorama. Tonight, the Saudi Prince who received secret payments from Britain's biggest arms deal, how the money was paid and how it was spent, and why our Panorama revelations have left the world's top leaders lost for words.

GEORGE BUSH: [to Tony Blair ] (laughing) I'm glad you're answering that question.

He's a friend of mine!

CORBIN: As British and Saudi governments tried to keep the lid on this scandal for over two decades, a corruption investigation was scrapped just as it was getting close to the truth. The only way to discover what really happened is to follow the money, so that's what we did.

The following is the transcript of a fascinating interview with Robert Wardle, director of the SFO.

ROBERT WARDLE Director, Serious Fraud Office

We traced evidence to Switzerland, we traced money to Switzerland, and it was at that stage that the representations were made.

CORBIN: Representations from Saudi Arabia.

WARDLE: So I understand.

CORBIN: The met stop for Bandar's airbus was Switzerland. A spotter snapped it in Basel on November 15th.

PLANE SPOTTER: We do not definitely know why it was here, but it was very lucky to get it here.

CORBIN: The SFO had asked the Swiss authorities for details of bank accounts belonging to business managers who act for Bandar and his father. The Saudis were furious.

WILLIAM SIMPSON Prince Bandar's biographer

The fact that they may be looking at personal records of some of the Saudi royal family was unacceptable and that's where I think Bandar was pressed into a role of dropping a word to his friend Tony Blair.

CORBIN: So did Bandar, the Saudi Security Chief who lobbied Mr Blair, threaten to stop cooperating in the war against terror? Well that's the line the Prime Minister chose to take with the SFO and the British public.

WARDLE: The information I had came from the minute from the Prime Minister I think it was to the attorney asking that we consider the public interest and I also had the advantage of talking about it with our ambassador in Saudi Arabia.

CORBIN: So it was at the point when you got to the Swiss bank accounts that, if you like, the balloon went up and the alarm bells started ringing.

WARDLE: Yes.

CORBIN: The pressure was ratcheted up at Bandar's next port of call - Paris.

PLANE SPOTTER; It's one of my favourite air bus so I'm always taking pictures of all the 340s in the world.

CORBIN: The Prince had come to be seen with President Chirac. The subtext - the Saudis were thinking a French fighter might well replace BAE's plane in the new round of Al-Yamamah.

SIMPSON: That's as clear a way, I would have thought, as any of pointing a gun at the British Government's head.

CORBIN: But there had to be another reason to stop the corruption probe, not the risk to a contract or jobs, the Anti-bribery Convention forbids that, so our ambassador to Riyadh visited the SFO three times to make it clear there'd be a price to pay if the Saudis stopped cooperating on terrorism.

WARDLE: I was convinced that if this happened, if this cooperation was withdrawn, there was a significant risk to life.

CORBIN: What, lives are at stake?

WARDLE: Yeah.

CORBIN: That was a lot of pressure to put on you.

WARDLE: Well, sure, but I mean if that's what's going to happen, then I've got to make a decision on that basis.

CORBIN: Maybe you could have stood up to this.

WARDLE: Well, maybe I could and maybe if I did that and took a risk maybe there'd have been some explosion on the streets of London.

CORBIN: And who controls the flow of Saudi intelligence on terrorism? Prince Bandar. Mr Wardle dropped the case.

WARDLE: Of course I'm not very happy when an investigation is stopped in its tracks like that but sometimes you have to make these difficult decisions and that's what I did.

CORBIN: That's life, that's politics in this case.

WARDLE: Well it's politics, it's the law, it's the way things are.

Now that is what I call a real terrorism threat being made...

Like he says, that's just the way things are now. In effect shut up, do as you are told and nobody will get hurt.

Do you think he has crossed the line during this interview?

pipnasty · June 17, 2007

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