Mr Tony Zureikat

20 December 2005

Q720  Sir Philip Mawer: Dinar?

Mr Zureikat: Dinar. It was good money too because Saddam was giving the Iraqis, they call it in their language "hussa", which means each Iraqi could get all their basic food from the government: rice, sugar, beans, tea, flour, vegetable oil, all the necessary commodities for people to survive, except meat. The reason I know that Mariam's dad was collecting US$100 was right after the war I went to Baghdad to chase my business with the Americans. I could not find a hotel so I went to Fawaz's office which was where I used to sleep before the war. It was closed, the guard was there and I asked him to bring somebody to clean up the place of dust and stuff. He brought an Armenian lady who was a maid before the war to clean up the house, and she did. The office was completely empty because before the war the United Nations busted them and they took everything out of the office. I spent the night over there.

Q721  Sir Philip Mawer: When you say they "busted them", what do you mean?

Mr Zureikat: The United Nations went to Fawaz's office. Fawaz got arrested for 28 days in Jordan.

Q722  Sir Philip Mawer: This was immediately prior to the war?

Mr Zureikat: Yes. He got released just after the fall of the regime.

Q723  Sir Philip Mawer: So you are saying the United Nations raided the office in Baghdad?

Mr Zureikat: Yes.

Q724  Sir Philip Mawer: That was immediately prior to the war presumably?

Mr Zureikat: Yes. That was a week or ten days before the war, or less than ten days even.

Q725  Sir Philip Mawer: Right.

Mr Zureikat: Right after his arrest in Amman they came to—The minute they arrested him in Amman they cleaned up the office there in Baghdad.

Q726  Sir Philip Mawer: Do you know why they did that?

Mr Zureikat: Yes, because it was all evidence that Fawaz was working with the military. There were letters between Fawaz and George. There was a lot of evidence. There was a lot of smelly stuff in those computers. They took them out. I spent the night. In the morning, I was walking to the offices and there was nothing there except the area where Shanti was using an office. I found that office and I said to the Senate it belonged to Shanti, not Fawaz, there was Shanti documentation. Then I found some LCs and some correspondence between Shanti and the ministers and copies of Fawaz's handwritten letters to the ministers and stuff. Also there was videotape that had Shanti with Hamas leadership, Mr Ibrahim, the vice-president, Aziz al-Douri or Aziz Ibrahim. They had become very friendly because Shanti was one of the people who donated a lot of money to Hamas. This is the same guy who is a British citizen. He had good ties with Hamas and from that he became close to Aziz al-Douri, Aziz Ibrahim. He brought Ibrahim a very nice gift from Jerusalem, a gold-plated whatever. I believe until today he has a relationship with him. Even if he is running away nobody knows, but Shanti knows.

Q727  Sir Philip Mawer: You are saying the hard evidence that you had, the documentation that you had, came from your visit to the office, Shanti's office in Baghdad?

Mr Zureikat: Fawaz's office: Shanti's corner in Fawaz's office where his representative was doing business.

Q728  Sir Philip Mawer: Not now, I do not expect you remember it, but could you give us the address of that office?

Mr Zureikat: I do not have it. It is in much of the documentation. It is in the industry 52 area near Baghdad University.

Q729  Sir Philip Mawer: Thank you.

Q730  Ms Barry: The UN had left papers in Shanti's office?

Mr Zureikat: Not the UN, just Shanti's representative. Shanti and Fawaz used to be partners. If we go back to my relationship with Fawaz a little bit. After we agreed to co-operate in Baghdad, we agreed at the beginning of 2002 to have a company that we registered in Jordan. After the visit of the minister to the exhibition, the German wing, he discussed buying German drilling rigs instead of the Italian ones and we had a contract, me and Fawaz. That was part of the agreement. We did not do the business in our company name because under UN regulations you must be a manufacturer to do business with the UN, so we left it in the German branch with a commission of half a million euros for me and Fawaz. I went through a lot of trouble to get this contract through because Fawaz said to me if the Mariam Appeal gets involved in this, the split is not going to be 50/50 and I said no, I did not want it. He wanted to go 70/30, 70 per cent for the appeal, because the appeal could secure the contract 100 per cent. The war came up and the contract was not secured because I refused.

Q731  Sir Philip Mawer: Can I just run back past you what I understand you to be saying. You are saying that originally you had an arrangement with Fawaz under which there would be a 50/50 split on contracts.

Mr Zureikat: It was the company, 50/50.

Q732  Sir Philip Mawer: A 50/50 split. You secured this contract to supply the German pumps.

Mr Zureikat: It just came to us, nobody secured it. We never participated in a tender.

Q733  Sir Philip Mawer: Okay. You got a contract?

Mr Zureikat: Yes.

Q734  Sir Philip Mawer: Fawaz was keen to associate the Mariam Appeal with the contract but the effect of that would have been that the 50/50 arrangement would not have applied, he said, he would have needed to take more money.

Mr Zureikat: 70/30, yes.

Q735  Sir Philip Mawer: You declined to do that?

Mr Zureikat: Yes.

Q736  Sir Philip Mawer: And the contract was never completed, in fact.

Mr Zureikat: It was completed but it took forever to do so. I sent it to the UN on 1 March. If the Mariam Appeal was involved we could have done it in one week.

Q737  Sir Philip Mawer: Was that because the Iraqis would have processed things faster?

Mr Zureikat: No, because Fawaz would have got involved in the name of the Mariam Appeal and pushed it through. It had to go through the normal processing channels, technicals and back and forth, correspondence, meetings, whatever, I did it all. If the Mariam Appeal was involved he could have gone to the minister and the minister could initial everything to approve it and send it in. In Fawaz business they used to call the minister of trade, showed him prices and let him give a counteroffer and signed it then and there. I did not do that and I would not do that, not because I am afraid but because it is not the way to do it, plus this is a very short life and I would not be happy to get my money in that way. I have got to work for it, use my experience, my talent, my closing power, and get my business my way. I have contracts for nearly 20 million. Because I refused the formula of Fawaz and the Mariam Appeal none of it went through. Shanti went in one week and he got an LC for seven million, another LC for two million. I am not stubborn, I am not stupid, but as long as nobody is knocking on my door and asking me to pay what I owe, I am a very rich person. Whatever comes on top of that is plenty: £10, €10, $10. I do not owe anybody any money. I am satisfied. We are living better than most people out there. We are okay. It did not attract me. In the 1980s I was a very active person making a lot of money. I used to pay Fawaz to put fuel in his car. At the time I used to make 5,000 per day and spend 6,000. I lived my life as a young man and enjoyed it very much. Money does not attract me any more.

Q738  Sir Philip Mawer: I think you are also saying to me, apart from the money not attracting you, that you were not prepared to go through the kind of process which you knew would be involved if the Mariam Appeal had been associated with the matter. As I understand it, you are saying that would have meant a different cut on contracts, it would have speeded things along, but you knew that was an improper process.

Mr Zureikat: The Mariam Appeal business does not go through the normal channels, normal processes. The minister will sign on the papers. In Saddam's time when you talked about a minister you were talking about God: a minister could send you to death, a minister could do whatever he wanted to do. When the minister called people to his office and told them, "Hey, finish it, just finish it", there were no questions asked. Let me go on a little bit to the $100 for Mariam's dad.

Q739  Sir Philip Mawer: Can I just finish on the contracts and then we will come back to the $100 for Mariam's dad. If I could just ask you this, because I need to be very clear about this: were you party to any contracts with Fawaz on behalf of the Mariam Appeal?

Mr Zureikat: No.