This is from The Newstatesman. Check out the comments after the article. How true they ring!

Documents released at the Royal Courts of Justice show the British government would be prepared to go as far as breaking international law in order to scrap the investigation into allegations of bribery between BAE Systems and Saudi Arabia.

On top of this the UK government appears, once again, to have kept back embarrassing documents from the OECD (the Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development) who are examining the government’s role in the affair, perhaps because these documents tell a different story to the one UK officials have been peddling at the OECD. Not only that but I, your humble comedian, had to instigate legal proceedings in order make this public.

The documents are the British government’s official response to the court action brought by the Corner House and Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) against the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The Corner House and CAAT claim that the SFO has broken international law and government pledges to abide by the OECD Anti bribery Convention, by dropping the BAE/Saudi enquiry. Article 5 of the OECD convention, to which Britain is a signatory, expressly forbids influencing investigations, for the sake of “national economic interest, the potential effect upon relations with another State or the identity of the natural or legal persons involved.”

But, while CAAT and Corner House are pursuing their legal action, a bizarre twist has occurred, with the government and the Court Service refusing to make public the SFO defence papers submitted in the first round of legal action. So in a major case of public interest that challenges the British government’s adherence to the rule of law, we are not allowed to see their legal defence.

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