Bribe and prejudice

Financial Times: Comment & Analysis, February 26, 2007

‘People could die’: how the inquiry into BAE’s Saudi deals was brought to earth, by Michael Peel

Of all the murky news stories that captured the headlines last year, the suspension of the BAE inquiry was perhaps the murkiest of all. Michael Peel’s feature in the Financial Times looks at the events that led up to the dropping of the investigation.

Last year, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) began an inquiry into allegations that BAE Systems, an arms and aerospace company, had bribed Saudi officials. On the 14^th December, 2006, the British government halted the SFO probe citing “the public interest”.

In the feature, Peel interviews Robert Wardle, the director of the SFO, who claims that he dropped the investigation after a meeting with Saudi ambassador Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles. During that meeting, Wardle was told that the SFO investigation could jeopardize British lives.

I found this feature astonishing, not least because it demonstrates the willingness of the Serious Fraud Office to simply roll over when under pressure. During the FT interview, Wardle says that Sir Sherard’s advice had deeply influenced his decision to drop the case. “Saudi society is a very different type of society to us,” he says, as if this patently obvious fact excuses any behaviour, no matter how questionable.

The feature also says that no less than three government departments intervened to shut down the investigation, namely: the prime minister’s office, the Ministry of Defence, and the Foreign Office.

The revelations laid down in the FT feature ought to disturb any rational British citizen. At the very least, the events speak of cowardice at the highest levels of government. But it is equally disturbing that much of the British media has cast this affair aside as old news.

All quotes taken from the FT feature, February 26, 2007, page 15