UK lawmaker ‘received Saddam oil allocations'

By Edward Alden, Jimmy Burns, Claudio Gatti, Mark Turner
October 25, 2005 
Financial Times
Original Source: http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1a7a7bc4-44ce-11da-a5f0-00000e2511c8.html
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 on Monday.
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 sub-committee 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.
In a statement on Monday, he said: “I have never benefited from any oil deal and I have never asked anyone to act on my behalf . . . This ought to be dead, yet Norm Coleman parrots it once more, from 3,000 miles away and protected by privilege.”
Mr Coleman said: “I am sure Mr Galloway will attack me and the subcommittee. What he cannot attack is the evidence, which speaks for itself.”
The documents released on Monday include wire transfers to and from the Citibank account of Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman who was allegedly the agent for transactions related to Iraqi oil allocations for Mr Galloway.
The documents show a transfer of $740,000 (£420,000) in July 2000 into the account of Mr Zureikat as a commission from Taurus Petroleum, a Swiss company. Taurus had purchased the oil from another company, Aredio Petroleum, which had acquired the oil directly from Iraq's State Oil Marketing Organisation.
Within days after the transfer, Mr Zureikat moved $150,000 from that account to an account for Mr Galloway's wife, Amineh Abu-Zayad, and another $340,000 to an account for Mariam Appeal, Mr Galloway's UK-based political campaign.
Dr Abu-Zayad told the committee in a statement on Monday: “I have never solicited or received from Iraq or anyone else any proceeds of any oil deals, either for myself or for my former husband.”
Mr Zureikat in turn is alleged to have paid illegal under-the-table surcharges back to the Hussein regime totalling more than $1.6m over two years.
The investigation also quotes Taha Yasin Ramadan, the former Iraqi vice- president, saying Mr Galloway had been granted allocations “because of his opinions about Iraq” and because he “want[ed] to lift the embargo against Iraq”.
Mr Galloway denied that allegation, telling the FT: “The first time I have ever seen Taha Yasin Ramadan was when I saw him [on TV] standing in the dock behind Saddam Hussein a few days ago.” He said statements from other Iraqi officials should be discounted because they were in custody and facing the possibility of death sentences.
Reporting by Edward Alden in Washington, Jimmy Burns in London and Claudio Gatti and Mark Turner in New York