The Respect MP George Galloway has
thrown down a challenge to the US Senate homeland security committee to charge
him with perjury and "I'll see you in court".
Galloway said that he was prepared
to fly out immediately to the United States if Senator Norm Coleman, who heads
the committee, was prepared to bring charges. The MP has just seen a press
release from the committee which alleges that he gave "false and misleading
testimony" on May 17. "I deny that absolutely. As I've said a thousand times,
I've never benefited personally. Let Coleman bring these charges and I'll rebut
them totally."
It is understood that senior Iraqi
members of the deposed regime have made statements to the committee, including
Tariq Aziz, Taha Yasin Ramadan, the former vice-president of the country, and
Amer Rashid, the former oil minister. "I've never met Ramadan or Rashid but I do
know that they are facing charges which may carry a death sentence. As is Tariq
Aziz. He has been held incommunicado for two years - and we know what goes on in
US-controlled prisons in Iraq - and we also know from his lawyers that he has
been offered a deal to testify," said Galloway. "On the one hand the US
government accuses these men of being homicidal maniacs, on the other they
assert that their coerced testimony is utterly trustworthy. Well, let Senator
Coleman bring them and his unnamed sources to court in a case against me, and
we'll see what the world concludes."
Galloway denies soliciting oil
allocations or receiving "one thin dime" from the oil-for-food programme. He
also denies any knowledge that his estranged wife, Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad,
received approximately $150,000 in connection with oil allocations. "I
understand she has made a statement denying this and it certainly came as news
to me because it has never been raised."
Galloway added that the fact that
the Mariam Appeal, a political campaign, had received more than $446,000 from
Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat "cannot be news to anyone. The Charity
Commission investigated the Mariam Appeal, it scrutinised every penny in and
every penny out and totally exonerated me from benefiting financially through
the campaign."
"It's Groundhog Day. I've already
comprehensively dealt with these allegations – under oath in the High Court and
the US Senate – to the Charity Commission and in innumerable media inquiries. It
seems that Senator Coleman, raising them yet again, is suffering from acute
attention deficit disorder. Hell clearly hath no fury than a US senator
humiliated. It's a sneak revenge attack of the most contemptible kind."
"He has not had the decency to let
me know the conclusions he and his cohorts have reached, nor even that he was
holding a press conference to smear me. For a lawyer he has a strange concept of
justice."
Galloway continued: "Let me once
again repeat. I have never benefited from any oil deal and I have never asked
anyone to act on my behalf. I have not made a penny out of oil deals with Iraq
or indeed any other kind of deal. This ought to be dead, yet Norm Coleman
parrots it once more, from 3000 miles away and protected by privilege."
"These attacks are being mounted
against me as a sideshow to divert attention from the real grand larceny -
$1.3bn missing from the defence department and $8.8bn from the oil accounts. All
of which occurred under the US administration."
Galloway also cast doubt on the veracity and provenance of the documents
'discovered' in Baghdad by the Telegraph journalist David Blair. "At the
conclusion of the appeal process in the libel case I will be revealing important
new information about this," Galloway said. "However it is still the case that,
despite Senator Coleman promising to do so, I have still not been furnished with
the originals or been able to have them independently forensically examined. If
you can call them originals because I understand these are mere photocopies. But
even it these are genuine papers the fact remains that anyone's name can be
written on a document. It does not mean that I received anything. How many more
times must I say - I did not."
