Galloway 'received Saddam oil allocations'
By FT Reporters October 25 2005
More than $600,000 raised from allocations of Iraqi crude oil was deposited into accounts for the wife and campaign charity of George Galloway, the British member of parliament (MP), a Senate subcommittee investigating the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal alleged yesterday.
Documents, including wire transfers, as well as interviews with top officials of the Saddam Hussein regime show Mr Galloway "personally solicited and received lucrative oil allocations from the Hussein regime", the committee alleged.
The charges raise new questions about Mr Galloway's public statements that he never profited from the oil-for-food scheme, which is the subject of criminal investigations, as well as inquiries by the United Nations and the US Congress.
Mr Galloway is one of a number of officials being investigated in a widespread influence-buying scheme through which Mr Hussein sought to undermine support for sanctions. They were allegedly given vouchers for underpriced Iraqi oil, and took a commission from the traders who actually lifted and sold the oil.
"We have what I think we call the smoking gun," Norm Coleman, the Republican chairman of the subcommittee, said of the bank transfers. "The additional evidence clearly demonstrates the testimony Mr Galloway provided the subcommittee was false and misleading."
He is referring the case to the US Justice Department, raising the possibility of criminal action against the MP over his testimony.
Mr Galloway last May embarrassed Mr Coleman by publicly denouncing the inquiry into his dealings with Iraq as "the mother of all smokescreens" aimed at distracting attention from the US war in Iraq. ...
<http://news.ft.com/cms/s/09fef66e-44f4-11da-a5f0-00000e2511c8.html>
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