Mr George Galloway

24 February 2005

Q340  Sir Philip Mawer: Okay. You indicated earlier that you dispute that the Daily Telegraph found the documents in the circumstances in which they claim they found them. Is that correct?

Mr Galloway: I have to be careful on how I word this, and I said this in court so I am not just saying it here. I do not believe that they found any of the documents in the circumstances in which they describe them, by accident, by chance, in a burning building, happening upon a box which happened to have a sign above it saying "read me, it will be worth your while." I do not believe that. But I now know—I know—that some of the documents they have published on the second day and subsequently they did not find in those circumstances.

Q341  Ms Barry: So they would have been inserted into the file in some way on subsequent dates?

Mr Galloway: I now know because a very honourable person of unimpeachable and impeccable credentials has come forward to me and told me some very important information that I will relay to the House in due course. On the issue of provenance that is all I can say at the moment.

Q342  Ms Barry: There was also a file about France allegedly and those documents do not seem to have been challenged.

Mr Galloway: I do not know about that.

Q343  Ms Barry: Mrs Clwyd used one of them in a parliamentary manner.

Mr Galloway: The Telegraph Group over the course of I think a fortnight, twice on a Sunday and in the daily, miraculously came upon documents which inter alia linked Saddam Hussein to Osama bin Laden. That charge is now dropped even by the United States Government itself but a document was published in the Sunday Telegraph saying there was a Tipex on a document which when scraped revealed the existence of a link between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. They reported again in the Sunday Telegraph on alleged perfidy by the Russian Government and the Russian Government giving secrets about America to the Iraqi regime, something about France I cannot recall now, and about me.

Q344  Ms Barry: I think a meeting being called off about you.

Mr Galloway: Was it? Within a fortnight Russia, France, Osama bin Laden and me all appeared in one newspaper group's publications. Forgive me, I have not pursued the veracity of the allegations against the others although I laugh (because otherwise one would cry) at the fake link between the Iraqi regime and bin Laden. It turns out there was no al­Qaeda in Iraq before but there certainly is now. The other documents related to me and I know that they are fake.

Q345  Sir Philip Mawer: Is it then your view that in essence the evidence that Mr David Blair the Daily Telegraph reporter gave about the circumstances in which he discovered the documents is just untrue or that his story—and I do not need to go through it in detail because you will know about it—about how he came across them in a room in the burnt-out foreign ministry building, that he saw boxes, he picked out a couple, he took them to his hotel room and worked on them through the day and then into a second day and it was only late on the second day, as I recall his evidence, that he came across one of the key documents which we have been discussing? Are you saying that is all a tissue of lies then?

Mr Galloway: I am saying what I said in court and I am going to say what I am going to say in the House. That is all I can say on that.

Q346  Sir Philip Mawer: I understand why you are saying what you are.

Mr Galloway: I am saying what I said in court and I am going to say what I am going to say in the House. That is all I can say on that.

Q347  Sir Philip Mawer: I understand why you are saying what—

Mr Galloway: Well, you can quote with impunity what I said in the court and I can say what I am going to say in the House with impunity. I am not able to speak with impunity to you now.

Q348  Sir Philip Mawer: Well, anything you say to me now is covered by parliamentary privilege. It is confidential to this inquiry and is not going to go further, except in the form of course if and when I decide to report to the Committee on the complaints against you.

Mr Galloway: I did not realise that it was covered by parliamentary privilege.

Q349  Sir Philip Mawer: It is, our conversation.

Mr Galloway: I knew that what you printed was covered by parliamentary privilege, but I did not realise that everything I say is covered by parliamentary privilege.

Q350  Sir Philip Mawer: Yes, it is.

Mr Galloway: That is a different matter. I intend to say that some of these documents were not found in this building and that they were given to Mr Blair, and I can prove that. They were given to him in Baghdad and I have a witness. Therefore, the story that all of these documents were found together in one box in a burning building is false and certain matters will flow from that, legal, political and of very great importance.

Q351  Sir Philip Mawer: You have gone as far as you can and I am grateful to you for being as frank with me as you have been in relation to that. It helps me at least not only in relation to assessing the complaints against you, but also in relation to understanding the nature of the process in which you are involved, the legal process, and the issues which might arise in the context of that process.

Mr Galloway: It also explains my sense of indignation.

Q352  Sir Philip Mawer: May we talk a little bit about the Mariam Appeal and I do not think we need to dwell at length on this. You established the appeal when?

Mr Galloway: In 1998.

Q353  Sir Philip Mawer: And you were Chairman of it for a period?

Mr Galloway: Yes. I do not know quite how long. It is a little unclear, but a relatively short period. There was then an interregnum in which, according to the bank documents, Mr Halford was named as the Chairman. He was also the Director of it and then the Chairman was Zureikat.

Q354  Sir Philip Mawer: And that was about 2001, I think from memory?

Mr Galloway: Zureikat?

Q355  Sir Philip Mawer: Yes.

Mr Galloway: No, 2000.

Q356  Sir Philip Mawer: From 2000?

Mr Galloway: Yes.

Q357  Sir Philip Mawer: And at some point a number of the records relating to the campaign were transferred.

Mr Galloway: The London office closed and everything was sent to the new office.

Q358  Sir Philip Mawer: The purpose of the appeal, as I understand it, the campaign, was two-fold essentially, but correct me if I am wrong. Part of it was to assist with the medical expenses of Mariam, the child Mariam herself, and part of it was to campaign against the sanctions which were then in place against Iraq. I think I am correct in saying that those were conceded by you as always being the dual purpose of the campaign.

Mr Galloway: The dual purpose, yes.

Q359  Sir Philip Mawer: I think I am also right in saying that probably the bulk of the monies collected by the campaign went on the second purpose, that is, the anti-sanctions campaigning.

Mr Galloway: Definitely, yes.