Galloway on the ropes

The odious and corrupt dictators' pet Galloway has been betrayed by his side-kick Ron McKay.

GEORGE Galloway's attempts to clear his name over the oil-for-food scandal suffered another setback yesterday when his spokesman confirmed that he had received payments from a businessman identified as a beneficiary of the scheme.

Ron McKay said he had received $15,666 from Fawaz Zureikat, an associate of Mr Galloway, in August 2000.

He is at least smart enough to try and soften the blow he knows will come.

Among the many accusations levelled by the independent inquiry committee led by former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker was that Mr Zureikat had paid $120,000 into Mr Galloway's wife's account in 2000. It was also alleged that the Mariam Appeal, which Mr Galloway chaired, received at least $446,000 in connection with several allocations granted under the oil-for-food programme.

Nothing like charity to make one feel good.

Yesterday Mr McKay said he had now checked his bank statements and was able to confirm he had received a payment from Mr Zureikat and $15,666 had been transferred into his personal account in August 2000. He said the payment went into a personal account by mistake and that it was intended to be sent to a business account, into which it was later moved. "I've had many business dealings with Fawaz Zureikat over the years. He was a director of a company that we were in together," he said. "The payment was nothing to do with oil. I have not benefited from it. It was later channelled to where it should have gone."

Sure, Ronny, no problem, just tell the judge you have forgotten and will ask George about it (previous posts here and here).

Galloway has also another problem:

The U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has referred its investigatory report on British MP George Galloway (Acrobat file) to numerous law enforcement bodies and regulatory agencies in the United States and the United Kingdom, including the Justice Department, the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.

...the subcommittee concluded that "there is reasonable cause to believe that a violation of law may have occurred" as a result of Galloway's "false and misleading testimony under oath regarding his role in the solicitation of oil allocations from the Hussein regime."

Galloway, Iraq, Oil for Food, Volcker