SADDAM HUSSEIN used his oil revenues to bankroll a secretive fund run by George Galloway, if the intelligence documents found in an Iraqi ministry building are genuine.

However, Mr Galloway and his supporters strongly deny the allegations, claiming that the papers are forged and were possibly planted to discredit him.

The allegations

The Daily Telegraph claims that Mr Galloway received at least £375,000 a year from sales of Iraqi oil. It further claims that he asked for more money during a meeting with a member of the Mukhabarat, Saddam Hussein’s intelligence agency, in Baghdad in 1999. It also claims that he asked for exceptional commercial opportunities with three ministries and the state electricity commision.

How the documents were found

A reporter, accompanied by an unidentified Iraqi translator, found three boxfiles marked “Britain” in the office of Iraq’s Foreign Minister. “Why the contents of the room with the boxfiles survived is a mystery,” the reporter wrote. “Everything else has been burnt to a cinder . . . ”

Mr Galloway said the journalist “couldn’t explain why these files were unburnt and undestroyed . . . It seems that the Telegraph group are the sewer of choice for those interested in intelligence matters.”

The date

The document begins with the date “3/1/2000”, but ends “2/1/2000”.

The envoy

Fawaz Abdullah Zureikat is described as an envoy of George Galloway. Mr Zureikat is claimed to say that the MP’s “projects and future plans for the benefit of the country need financial support to become a motive for him to do more work. And because of the sensitivity of getting money directly from Iraq, it is necessary to grant him oil contracts and special and exceptional commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly.”

Sabah al-Mukhtar, former vice-president of the Mariam Appeal and an Iraq-born lawyer and oil expert, says this passage was drafted by an English person. “This is not an Iraqi thinking.”

Mr Zureikat studied at university in Jordan with Mr Galloway’s Palestinian wife. He denies trading oil with Iraq, but is registered with the UN as a food merchant under the Oil-for-Food programme.

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