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Galloway challenges the US Senate committee to charge him
By Neil Williams
10/25/05 "ICH
" -- -- 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."
Neil Williams <neilwilliams1952@gmail.com>
From Respect - The Unity Coalition national (UK) site at:
http://www.respectcoalition.org/?ite=905
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