Exclusive: MP Galloway's Saddam link held in Amman
Gulf News (United Arab Emirates) ^ | April 23, 2003 | Mustapha Karkouti
A Jordanian business man, Fawaz Zureikat, whose name was revealed yesterday as an allegedly business intermediary between Labour member of Parliament George Galloway and Saddam Hussain's regime, has been detained in Amman.
George Galloway MP, a familiar face to Arab public, is at the top of the news once again, but this time as having been, allegedly, on the pay-roll of Saddam Hussain's regime, at least since 2000.
The allegations, claimed to have been uncovered in "secret documents" found by a reporter in two charred boxes at the first floor of the looted foreign ministry in Baghdad are many and they include that Galloway took a cut of oil money worth at least £375,000 a year.
Other allegations claimed that Galloway recommended a Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, as "his representative", or intermediary, to deal on his behalf with the Iraqi authority. All these claims have been fiercely denied by Galloway.
But Gulf News can reveal that Zureikat (45), former station manager of Arab Television, a new English-language satellite channel with offices in London and formerly in Baghdad, was detained last month in Amman for unknown reasons.
ATV went on air for less than two weeks before it seized broadcasting in March as a result of Zureikat arrest.
According to Amnesty, Zureikat was detained on March 3. He is being held, AI says, without charge at the headquarters of General Intelligence Department in Amman. Amnesty considers him to be "a possible prisoner of conscience, detained solely for the peaceful expression of his political beliefs."
In a brief issued last month, AI said on 3 March security officers arrested Zurayqat at his office in Amman and seized computers, documents and compact discs. He was taken to the General Intelligence Department, where he is still being held.
"He has been denied access to a lawyer, but his brother has been able to visit him twice," AI said.
Zurayqat is a leading member of the National Mobilisation Committee for the Defence of Iraq, a non-governmental organisation which campaigns against the sanctions and war on Iraq and supported by Galloway.
The main claims against galloway, published in The Daily Telegraph, say the Iraqi intelligence chief, whose signature was "illegible", wrote a memorandum stating that the MP had told a spy: "He ( Galloway) needs continuous financial support from Iraq.
"He obtained through Tariq Aziz (Iraq's deputy prime minister) three million barrels of oil every six months, according to the oil for food programme. His share would be only between 10 and 15 cents per barrel."
On Galloway's links with the Jordanian business man, the alleged document says Zureikat told Iraqi intelligence that the "Mariam Appeal," which was founded by Galloway to campaign for a lifting of the Iraqi trade embargo and against war, put his future as a British MP in doubt.
Excellent posting of a "dot" in the big picture.
Hmmm, another Jordanian connection--if Zureikat was an intermediary to the British left, was he also an intermediary to the CIA station in Jordan where David Manners was?
bttt