THE Parliamentary Ombudsman was studying claims yesterday in a US Senate report that George Galloway failed to disclose money from Iraq’s Oil-for-Food programme in the register of interests.

Senators piled more pressure on the Respect MP by accusing him of knowingly misleading the English High Court under oath in a libel trial. He is already expected to be referred to the US Justice Department over claims of perjury, false statement and obstruction of proceedings, risking a five-year sentence.

Mr Galloway protested his innocence of receiving any Iraqi oil money. He urged the Americans to charge him so that he could fight them in court as he famously did in hearings on Capitol Hill in May.

"I am begging for prosecution," the MP said. "I am saying if I have lied under oath in front of the Senate, that’s a criminal offence. Charge me and I will head for the airport right now and face them down in court."

Senators have produced a report containing purported Iraqi intelligence documents and testimony from Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s former Deputy Prime Minister. They allege that Fawaz Zureikat, a Jordanian middleman, paid $150,000 (£84,000) to Mr Galloway’s now-estranged wife Amineh Abu-Zayyad, which she has denied. The middleman also allegedly gave $446,000 to the Mariam Appeal, the MP’s campaign against Iraq sanctions.

In its final appendix, the Senate Permanent Sub-committee on Investigations rebukes Mr Galloway. . It accuses him of "violating" the MPs’ code of conduct by failing to register financial interests. "George Galloway did not disclose any of the transfers from Zureikat to his wife or the Mariam Appeal that resulted from the Oil-for-Food transactions," the senate report states.

Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards, was believed to be reading the senators’ report yesterday. "He is constantly in touch with the Senate Sub-commitee," his office said.

The commissioner received a complaint in April 2003 that Mr Galloway had failed to register £375,000 from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

Mr Galloway said of the latest allegations in the Senate: "The evidence is statements made by the people living now in the dungeons of the American occupation in Iraq.

"Knowing what we do about what happens to people in American dungeons in Iraq, you don’t have to be a genius to work out why, after May, they would get somebody to say what they want them to say. Nobody has ever given me one thin dime from an oil deal or any other deal."

Mr Galloway’s spokesman said: "George had nothing to do with the Oil-for-Food programme so why on earth would he register something he had nothing to do with?"

www.timesonline.co.uk/americas
Galloway report in full

LEGAL MOVES

No British MP has ever been extradited to the US and an extradition case appears unlikely

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