contaminant media

The High Court ruled today that the Serious Fraud Office acted UNLAWFULLY in ending their investigation into corruption allegations against BAE systems, Britain’s largest arms company.

BAE Systems had been under investigation from July 2004, after allegations that it had bribed Saudi officials to win contracts for arms deals. The ‘Al Yamamah’ contract, signed in the 1980s under Thatcher’s government, was for BAE to supply Saudi Arabia with dozens of military aircraft, despite the country’s unenviable human rights record.

In December 2007, just as the investigating body were getting somewhere – the SFO were just about to get access to Swiss bank accounts – the investigation was suddently terminated. (This was after BAE had already leant on the attorney general to halt the inquiry in October 2005.)

The SFO are supposedly an independent prosecuting organisation. Despite this, the Blair government directly intervened to stop the SFO continuing its work, saying that it had already cost a lot of money, it would mean job losses at BAE, and most importantly that it could hurt relations with the Saudi government. It was claimed that the Saudis had tried to blackmail them, by threatening to withhold intelligence on terrorists.

Whether this was true, or whether the decision was made to cynically protect BAE’s corporate interests, is a matter for you to decide.

Campaign Against the Arms Trade and Cornerhouse anti-corruption publishers launched a David v Goliath legal battle to challenge the SFO’s decision. Today the judges were scathing of the government and the SFO, and ruled that they had acted unlawfully in halting the investigation.
Ruling: http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Guardian/documents/2008/04/10/judgment_corner_house_100408.pdf

Today’s High Court victory confirms the fact that BAE Systems is a corrupt and extremely powerful company, which is able to manipulate the government at the highest level. It shows that the government are also perfectly willing to sacrifice their supposed democratic mandate, to assist the fat-cat bosses in their aim to fatten their already bulging wallets on the backs of those killed by BAE’s products.

The British government remain under investigation for corruption by international OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). The repurcussions for the government as a result of that, and today’s ruling, remain to be seen.