threats can be opportunities in disguise

Speaking of Tony’s friends:

Saudi Arabia's rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday. Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced "another 7/7" and the loss of "British lives on British streets" if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

He was accused in yesterday's high court hearings of flying to London in December 2006 and uttering threats which made the prime minister, Tony Blair, force an end to the Serious Fraud Office investigation into bribery allegations involving Bandar and his family.

via. I’m not sure how seriously this threat should be taken, since anti-terror co-operation is a good deal more necessary in the Magic Kingdom than in the UK. It’s Wahabi central and they’ve had a lot more bombings than us. And there have been no propven Saudi connections to any of the attacks here. Even MI6 refused to sign off on the idea at the time:

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, told parliament before Christmas that the intelligence agencies "agreed with the assessment" of Tony Blair that national security was in jeopardy because the Saudis intended to pull out of intelligence cooperation with Britain. But John Scarlett, the head of MI6, has now refused to sign up to a government dossier which says MI6 endorses this view.

Whitehall sources have told the Guardian that the statement to the Lords was incorrect. MI6 and MI5 possessed no intelligence that the Saudis intended to sever security links. The intelligence agencies had been merely asked whether it would be damaging to UK national security if such a breach did happen. They replied that naturally it would.

The process seems to have been that Bandar personally pressured Blair, who in turn pressured the Serious Fraud Office out of the investigation. What isn’t clear is who specifically told the SFO that there would be blood in the streets of Britain if the money didn’t keep rolling in to Prince B’s bank account. Perhaps the former politician who got a job with a finance house which has recently opened a Riyadh office could tell us.

Comments

[Antipholus Papps]

This was the point where I gave up on my country. It is truly disgusting the traitor Blair abolished the rule of law in Britain in order to grease the palm of a billionaire.