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UK papers slam fraud office over BAE, Saudi probe

British newspapers harshly criticized the government yesterday for not upholding the principle of the rule of law after the High Court overturned its decision to drop an inquiry into alleged bribery and corruption in a deal between arms maker BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia.

The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) abandoned in 2006 the inquiry into a 1985 BAE deal worth £43 billion (US$85 billion) to provide Riyadh with fighter jets and other military equipment.

Former prime minister Tony Blair publicly took responsibility for the decision in December 2006, claiming the investigation threatened national security because of the possibility it would provoke the Saudi government into stopping cooperation on combating terrorism.

“When the Saudis demanded the probe be called off, no one explained that justice could not simply be swept aside,” the Guardian wrote in its editorial. “Instead Whitehall [the government] cravenly concluded that capitulation was nasty but necessary.”

The then attorney general Lord Peter Goldsmith, the government’s principal legal adviser, announced in December 2006 that the probe into the arms company was to be discontinued.

But two judges ruled on Thursday that SFO Director Robert Wardle “was required to satisfy the court that all that could reasonably be done had been done to resist the threat.”

In its editorial on the subject, the Financial Times wrote: “Nobody, least of all a foreign government, should be allowed to dictate the course of a criminal investigation.”

“That is what happened here,” it wrote.

“The craven attitude of the UK government -— it conveyed the Saudi threats to the SFO rather than rebuff Riyadh — seemed to send a message to strategic allies: you will get your way if you scream loudly enough,” the Financial Times said.

Meanwhile, the Times wrote that, often, there are “moments when a statement of the obvious cuts through the fog of self-interest and evasion that clings to much of politics, and clears the way for a genuine fresh start.”

“The High Court’s stunning condemnation of the decision to abandon an investigation into alleged bribery by BAE Systems is such a moment,” the Times said.

“Whatever the implications of this ruling for Anglo-Saudi relations, the long-term health of British justice is more important,” it said.

Not all newspapers were as critical of the government’s decision, however, with the Daily Telegraph declaring that in “a parliamentary democracy, the elected prime minister must have the right, in exceptional circumstances, to take such hard decisions in the national interest.”

“Given the implacability of the forces on both sides of this argument, it could well end in a rather messy stand-off. Not very satisfactory, perhaps, but then the real world frequently isn’t,” the Daily Telegraph said.


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