Mr George Galloway

30 November 2006

Q420  Sir Philip Mawer: Your reaction to it is not a surprise to me but I felt it appropriate to share it with you. Can we move on to the question of the Mariam Appeal, which is the second area I want to touch on? In this context, I will be making reference to the evidence I have received from Mr Al-Mukhtar[36] and Stuart Halford[37] which you have a copy of. In their evidence, both Sabah Al-Mukhtar and Stuart Halford say that you were responsible for the overall direction of the Mariam Appeal throughout its life. Is that how you would describe your role?

Mr Galloway: Absolutely, and I think I have said this to you before but, if not, let me say it unequivocally on the record now. Neither Mr Al-Mukhtar, Mr Halford nor anybody else are responsible for any of these big questions that we are discussing now. Mr Al-Mukhtar's relationship to these events was quite tangential, certainly not day-to-day, and Mr Halford acted under my instructions; he is not responsible. I have some queries—and we will come to them, I am sure—about what I now realise was the level of his expenditure. In terms of policy decisions of import, all of these were mine; I take full responsibility for them. I have no intention of hiding behind anyone else in this regard.

Q421  Sir Philip Mawer: In that context, one thing that emerged from my conversation with Mr Halford, of which you have the record, was that your parliamentary staff were deployed in various respects in assisting the Appeal. In your letter[38] of 1 November to me, giving your initial reaction to this evidence, you did not appear to deny their involvement. Your staff, paid for out of public monies, are provided, however, to enable you to do your work as a Member. How do you justify them working for the Appeal in the way that Mr Halford has alleged?

Mr Galloway: It is not unusual for Members of Parliament to be involved in political campaigns. In fact, a Member of Parliament worthy of their salt is involved in all manner of political campaigns. If you were to walk now unannounced into the offices of many Members of Parliament you would find that they were campaigning against Trident or fighting to save a local hospital or many other kind of campaigns. This is normal; we are politicians. We do not just deal with whether or not the lamp posts in our local constituencies have been painted recently enough, we deal with big issues, national issues, international issues. My campaign was against British Government policy. I am a Member of Parliament, I am entitled to campaign against British Government policy, and I am entitled to ask my staff to help me do so. This was not a charity, it was not a business, it was a political campaign. As we both know, it has subsequently been declared a charity for reasons which I have described before and I will not bore you with again now. This was a political campaign, I am a political figure, and from time to time the staff in my office are asked to assist me with my political campaigning.

Q422  Sir Philip Mawer: The assistance seems to have been quite extensive. From the information I have seen, your office, I think at that time in 7 Millbank, was used as the office of the Appeal until separate accommodation was acquired, from memory, in Northumberland Avenue initially. It involved, for example, the receipt of donations sent in because this was the address given to which supporters could write in in support of the Appeal and, also, according to Mr Halford's evidence, involved mass mailings to a very substantial number of supporters. It appears that the support was really quite extensive.

Mr Galloway: I do not accept that, and they were certainly not mass mailings using House of Commons stationery if that is your implication, is it?

Q423  Sir Philip Mawer: I do not have evidence of post-paid envelopes being used but I have a copy—I do not have it immediately to hand—which, from memory, suggests that House stationery was used in the context of the Appeal. Let me, if I may, check that point. Just as you are going to write to me with the note of the conversation with the journalist, I will write to you when I have had an opportunity to check that.

Mr Galloway: I dispute the description "extensive" but I do not resile from the fact that the parliamentary staff and the parliamentary office were used for my political campaign against the British Government's policy of sanctions on Iraq. On the subject of donations, as you well know, there were not many donations. The number of donations is clear from the bank records. Three people donated the overwhelming majority of funding of the campaign, so I would not like you to think that the staff were busy opening envelopes with small donations coming from around the country, they were not.

Q424  Sir Philip Mawer: The three people concerned being, if I am correct, the Government of the United Arab Emirates?

Mr Galloway: Yes.

Q425  Sir Philip Mawer: The Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia?

Mr Galloway: Now King.

Q426  Sir Philip Mawer: Mr Fawaz Zureikat?

Mr Galloway: Yes.

Q427  Sir Philip Mawer: Moving on, there appears to be a difference in evidence between your account given to the Charity Commission and Mr Halford's account given to me as to what happened to the books and records of the Appeal in the year 2000. The account you gave to the Charity Commission, through your solicitors at the time of their initial inquiry into the Appeal, was that the books and records of the Appeal had been transferred to Jordan at the point at which Fawaz Zureikat became chairman of the Appeal. Mr Halford, who you said in correspondence to me was responsible for the day-to-day administration of the finances of the Appeal among other things, says that none of the documents in his possession was transferred to Jordan in that way. In fact, he does not recall any documents that he held—and he was the Director of Operations of the Appeal—being transferred. I am curious as to what records were transferred, if any, in June 2000?

Mr Galloway: First of all, the question of books and records is a misnomer. This is not an organisation that had many books and records. Its financial records are in your possession. Every penny in, every penny out went through the bank. You have got the bank account details.

Q428  Sir Philip Mawer: Can I correct you there. The Charity Commission exercised their statutory powers to obtain information from the banks relating to payments into and out of accounts which the banks used by the Appeal held, but that is not the same thing as saying that the Charity Commission had all the financial records of the Appeal. What they have got is the information from the banks which the banks had available to give them. That is not the same thing as the books and records of the Appeal.

Mr Galloway: It depends on what you mean by books and records. They have a record of every payment in and they have a record of every payment out.

Q429  Sir Philip Mawer: To those banks.

Mr Galloway: Yes, unless you are suggesting there were other accounts?

Q430  Sir Philip Mawer: I do not know what other accounts there were because there was no information available on the finances.

Mr Galloway: I am taking that as an indication that you have no evidence that there was any other account and there was not a strong box somewhere filled with money. There were two accounts, and all the details are in the hands of the Charity Commission about the income and expenditure from those accounts. I said to you in my letter,[39] to which you referred, which answered yours of 26 October,[40] the kind of material that was given to Fawaz Zureikat when he became chairman almost as a rite of passage, "You are now the Chairman, here are some compliment slips, here is some stationery, here are some envelopes and here are some of the foundation leaflets and pamphlets and magazines and so on that we had produced".

Q431  Sir Philip Mawer: By whom was this material given?

Mr Galloway: By me.

Q432  Sir Philip Mawer: And that was the nature of the material, it was publicity material and stationery?

Mr Galloway: That is what I would call our records, our records of our existence, why we came into being, hospital details, medical correspondence for the child, Mariam, these were the things that were given to Zureikat and these were the only things he required.

Q433  Ms Barry: I have had dealings with organisations where we had difficulty following from one treasurer to another because the book was not available.

Mr Galloway: There is no book.

Q434  Sir Philip Mawer: The question about these documents and the transfer of the books and records, certainly in the context of the Charity Commission report,[41] is really rather important—I am referring to the report of the first Charity Commission inquiry—because the Commission, you will remember, reached a view that they could not finally determine what had gone on because they could only express a view on the basis of the information that was available to them.

Mr Galloway: I wholly reject that construction, that is not at all what they said. They said they had examined the documents of the Mariam Appeal and they found no evidence that any of the substantial amounts of money raised by the Mariam Appeal had been used improperly.

Q435  Sir Philip Mawer: But they had not been sent the books and records, had they, because there were no books and records kept in the conventional sense?

Mr Galloway: That is the conclusion of the Mariam Appeal inquiry by the Charity Commission; please do not rewrite it.

Q436  Sir Philip Mawer: No, I certainly do not intend to rewrite it, it is on the public record and you and I can refer to it along with everybody else.

Mr Galloway: Exactly, it is on the public record.

Q437  Sir Philip Mawer: The point I am making to you is that if you read that report you get the impression from it that the Appeal books and records were transferred to Jordan in 2000.

Mr Galloway: Can I ask you what you mean by books and records?

Q438  Sir Philip Mawer: I mean any documentation referring to financial and other related transactions, the minutes of meetings and all those other things which you would expect any reasonably run organisation to have.

Mr Galloway: They have a record of every penny in and the expenditure of every penny out.

Q439  Sir Philip Mawer: Which they had to obtain from the banks.

Mr Galloway: You say they "had to" obtain from the banks as if I resisted them obtaining it from the banks.

37   Volume III, PCS Oral Evidence 7 . Back

38   Volume II, WE 87. Back

39   Volume II, WE 87. Back

40   Volume II, WE 86. Back

41   Volume II, WE 33. Back