Mr George Galloway

30 November 2006

Q480  Sir Philip Mawer: Can I put this to you, it has been suggested to me that person may have been ***, is that correct?

Mr Galloway: Were these payments made by cheque?

Q481  Sir Philip Mawer: What I have seen is a summary of the records.

Mr Galloway: I think you should investigate that further. I can assure you that it was not paid to ***. She is not E Laing, she is not Elaine Laing and she has never been called Laing. This name is completely foreign to me.

Q482  Sir Philip Mawer: Okay, that is fine.

Mr Galloway: But I do think it is a very significant point and may I underscore that.

Q483  Sir Philip Mawer: Can we move on to what happened in Baghdad?

Mr Galloway: May I ask you again for that figure?

Q484  Sir Philip Mawer: £13,750.

Mr Galloway: That is a very significant fraud.

Q485  Sir Philip Mawer: Can we move on to Baghdad and what happened there and, in particular, where you spent Boxing Day 1999. We have covered this before.

Mr Galloway: I am not sure I have got any better a memory now than I did then.

Q486  Sir Philip Mawer: My difficulty is that you apparently said different things about what happened and where you were.

Mr Galloway: To you?

Q487  Sir Philip Mawer: In various different places, in two letters to me and in your evidence in the High Court. If I can go through them. In a letter[44] of 29 August 2003 to me you said: "I met several people on Boxing Day in 1999, none of them, to my knowledge, was an official of Iraqi intelligence". In the High Court on 16 November 2004 you said: "I know now from my discussions with Fawaz Zureikat what I was doing on Boxing Day when I was not meeting an Iraqi intelligence officer". Then in your letter[45] to me dated 22 August 2005 you said: "Neither can I be more helpful than I have been about Christmas Day and Boxing Day five years ago. I had Christmas lunch with Mr Tariq Aziz, his family, friends and other ministers on Christmas Day. As far as I recollect, I met no-one of importance on Boxing Day. As far as I recall, I spent it in my hotel". The point I would like you to comment on here is that in the High Court you said: "I know now from my discussions with Fawaz Zureikat what I was doing on Boxing Day" and in a subsequent letter[46] on 22 August 2005 to me you said that as far as you could recollect you met no-one of importance on Boxing Day: "As far as I recall, I spent it in my hotel".

Mr Galloway: That is my position.

Q488  Sir Philip Mawer: Do you or do you not know who you met on Boxing Day and what you were doing on Boxing Day? The High Court comment made in evidence appears to indicate that you had had conversations with Fawaz Zureikat which had enabled you to establish what you had been doing on Boxing Day.

Mr Galloway: That is a semantic point.

Q489  Sir Philip Mawer: It is a rather important semantic point.

Mr Galloway: Is it? Tell me why?

Q490  Sir Philip Mawer: It is important because I want to get to the bottom of your understanding of what you were doing on Boxing Day.

Mr Galloway: What you are saying is I claimed on one occasion that I knew I had not met anyone important and what I said on a second occasion was that to the best of my recollection I had not met anyone important. Is that your point?

Q491  Sir Philip Mawer: You said the first time, "I know now from my discussions what I was doing", the second time you were saying: "As far as I recollect I met no-one of importance. As far as I recall, I spent it in my hotel".

Mr Galloway: We may have a different definition of semantic but for me that is a semantic point. Let me unequivocally state that I did not meet any Iraqi intelligence officer to the best of my knowledge, I did not meet anyone important, and I am almost certain that I spent the entirety of the day in the hotel.

Q492  Sir Philip Mawer: Who did you meet on that day?

Mr Galloway: Meaning?

Q493  Sir Philip Mawer: This is a very simple question.

Mr Galloway: It is not simple at all. I met the waiter who served the coffee, I met the porter in the hotel, I may have spoken to a taxi driver and I may have bought something in the hotel, what does that mean? If you are asking me if I had any meetings or met anyone important or met anyone who could have been an Iraqi intelligence officer, the answer is no.

Q494  Sir Philip Mawer: In effect, you are saying to me that you had no meeting of any importance, to your recollection, on that day and you have certainly always consistently said that you had no meeting with any Iraqi intelligence officer, to your knowledge?

Mr Galloway: As I have made clear before, one can never be sure in any country, even in this one, if one is meeting an official of that country's intelligence service. In Iraq and countries like it, it is even less easy to know. To the best of my knowledge I have never met any person connected with the Iraqi intelligence service.

Q495  Sir Philip Mawer: Thank you. You said to me a moment or so ago when we began to focus on the evidence of Mr Halford that you had some queries or points you wanted to make in relation to that.

Mr Galloway: I now have an even more important one.

Q496  Sir Philip Mawer: You said in your letter to me of 1 November: "I will expand on my criticisms when I meet you but here are some bullet points". I am now giving you the opportunity to do that.

Mr Galloway: I now have an additional one. You have now informed me that more than £13,000 was paid, I presume by cheque and if it was by cheque, the cheque would have been written in Mr Halford's handwriting to someone called E Laing. That is a matter of very grave concern which may or may not be connected to the point I wanted to raise, in any case, and which you raised, that was the level of expenses that he was paying himself. In parenthesis, if there were any blank cheques, perhaps those were the blank cheques.

Mr McKay: There is no reference to blank cheques in his evidence.

Q497  Sir Philip Mawer: Are you accusing Mr Halford of having—

Mr Galloway: No, I am about to ask you if you were satisfied because you indicated in this conversation with him that you would be expecting to see supporting evidence for the level of his expenses, and have you?

Q498  Sir Philip Mawer: I have, and I am satisfied, on the evidence which he has been able to provide me with, that the cheques he received from the Appeal were spent on Appeal business.

Mr Galloway: Can I ask you how you so satisfied yourself?

Q499  Sir Philip Mawer: On the basis of the account he has given me and the evidence which I have in front of me in relation to those matters. From memory, the amount of money he received from the Appeal was some £70,000 in salary…

Mr Galloway: I am referring to the place where he says he is surprised at the level of expenses he is said to have received.

45   Volume II, WE 66. Back

46   Volume II, WE 66. Back