West End Extra - Letters: Secrets and lies

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 18 May 2007

Secrets and lies

• IN your coverage of the demonstration against the Attorney General’s blocking of the Serious Fraud Office inquiry into BAE’s bribery of Saudi Arabians in return for arms contracts (May 11), Symon Hill of the Campaign Against Arms Trade decries the fact that the Attorney General gave in to BAE’s demands to spike this investigation.
No doubt BAE were delighted that he did block it but he didn’t do so at their behest – it was Saudis who panicked when the investigation got near their Swiss bank accounts and they who ordered the British government to call off the SFO.
The government said they did it to save jobs but then admitted bowing to Saudi pressure, claiming that the Saudis had threatened to withdraw international intelligence co-operation on terrorism – ie they threatened to make Saudi Arabia a
safe-haven for terrorists.
Whether this threat was actually made we will never know because the government immediately clicked its heels and caved in. In doing so we have upset our other masters, the Americans, and it is going to require some obsequious grovelling to appease both masters simultaneously. Should be amusing to watch.
MARTIN KENNEDY
Brewer Street, W1

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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