THE Attorney-General has asked the Charity Commission to inquire into George Galloway’s fundraising activities after the MP disclosed some of the secrets of his Mariam Appeal.

Mr Galloway divulged that Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian businessman and close associate who was awarded millions of dollars of oil contracts by Saddam Hussein, donated nearly £400,000 to the appeal. The MP listed how some of the £1 million raised was spent on campaign activities, publicity, office expenses and healthcare, but has yet to account publicly for about £625,000.

Mr Galloway said that it would be unworthy of Lord Goldsmith, QC, to join the atmosphere of a witch-hunt against him, and that it would be perverse to declare his anti-war work illegal.

The MP promised originally to spend all the money collected by the appeal on medical aid, but instead created a pro-Iraq pressure group, claiming frequent travel expenses.

An exposé of the Mariam Appeal in The Times led a reader to complain to the Attorney-General about a possible misuse of charitable funds. Preliminary inquiries have been conducted over the past two weeks by the Treasury Solicitor’s Department. Mr Galloway decided against registering the appeal as a charity, so avoiding the need to publish records detailing income and expenditure.

But the Attorney-General has powers to examine bodies that operate like charities. He asked the Charity Commission yesterday “to undertake further fact-finding . . . into a complaint that the Mariam Appeal may have used charitable funds for non-charitable purposes”.

Mr Galloway launched the appeal in 1998 in the name of Mariam Hamza, 4, whose leukaemia he blamed on uranium-tipped weapons used by the Allies in the 1991 Gulf War. The MP brought Mariam for treatment to the Royal Hospital for Sick Children in Glasgow.

The appeal claimed that it had guaranteed her treatment up to £50,000. Its target was £100,000. On Commons paper, the MP wrote: “The balance after Mariam’s hospital bills have been paid will be sent as medicine and medical supplies to the children she had to leave behind.”

When The Times asked him about the Mariam Appeal’s funding, he replied by e-mail stating: “I regard you as a whore writing for a pimp.”

At the start of the week he said that the Mariam Appeal was “a political campaign” which had “no obligation to open its activities to its enemies . . . and will not do so”.

Yesterday he tried to pre-empt Lord Goldsmith by writing a public letter to him giving limited details of income and expenditure. Mr Galloway claimed in the letter that the appeal was founded not only to save the girl’s life, but also to campaign against sanctions. Mr Galloway spent its funds on 14 overseas trips covering 15 countries, mostly including flights and frequently hotel bills.

The MP wrote to the Attorney-General: “I have studiously recorded these journeys in the register of members interest(s) . . . although the exact ‘personal benefit’ received in attending, say, an anti-sanctions event in snow-bound Ukraine has often been hard to see.”

Mr Galloway told the Attorney-General that the appeal raised almost £1 million over four years. The Government of the United Arab Emirates gave more than £500,000, the Saudi Arabia Government about £100,000 and Mr Zureikat provided the bulk of the rest.

In interviews yesterday Mr Galloway emphasised that while he had not personally received money from Iraq, others may have done so.

He also said: “The Daily Telegraph have not advanced a scintilla of evidence that I have ever traded in oil or food or received any money from Iraq.”

The promise and the explanation

George Galloway’s pledge to potential donors to the Mariam Appeal:

• “The balance after Mariam’s hospital bills have been paid will be sent as medicine and medical supplies to the children she had to leave behind.”

  George Galloway’s explanation to the Attorney-General on where the cash went:

• Attending international conferences and meetings and demonstrations on Iraq

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