Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Where the SFO left off, the DOJ will continue

I watched an interesting report on Newsnight about the ending of the Serious Fraud Office investigation into the Al Yamamah arms deal with Saudi Arabia.

It featured an interview with Robert Wardle head of the Serious Farce Office, who still maintains that it was his decision, and that he reached it after discussions with the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith, the Solicitor General Mike O'Brien and our Ambassador in Saudi Arabia.

Robert Wardle claims he made the decision in the public interest. However there are doubts. Firstly as I have said before in this article, it is not his job as he still does not have all the information and it is still a political decision, then we have this about Sir John Scarlett's letter saying there were no concerns about our relationship with the Saudis. Apparently the Americans who have had anti corruption laws for years are not convinced either.

Well according to the Newsnight report the United States Department of Justice is actively looking at the case and may well carry on and seek to get a conviction. What is more they get easy extradition terms from us. Could be fun.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

Did Clinton fire her first shot?

This is from the NY Times on Al Gore. Looks like he is preparing to run for president and the Clinton camp is worried.

From a Rapt Audience, a Call to Cool the Hype

Benedict White said...

Zoom, there appears to be no link in your post.