This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/624
UK Islamist politician mouthed off to US senators but turned tail in confrontation with Muslim youths
May 17, 2005
Getting by with a little help from his friends - Saddam Hussain and 'Georgeous' George Galloway
MIM: Galloway's friend Saddam was found hiding in a hole . Galloway just crawled out of one, and will hopefully be confined to prison after the lies in his testimony in front of a Senate committee are uncovered. Today the UK Charity Commission has announced it will reopen their investigation into Galloways' 'charity' the Mariam Fund. Galloway might have had his '15 minutes of fame' in the Senate with his bullyboy tactics, where newspapers reported he had come out 'with bits of flesh between his teeth' . The flesh has come from the foot which he stuck in his mouth, and it is only a matter of time before his inane grin will be wiped off his 'gob'.
"...Harder to put aside with an airy wave are the accusations that he used the proceeds from his Miriam Appeal which he started ostensibly to bring an Iraqi child sick with leukemia to Britain for treatment, for personal purposes. It did not cost the hundreds of thousands of pounds that were donated to the fund by members of the British public, and also Middle Eastern governments, to cure Miriam. Long after Miriam was declared leukemia-free, the charity rocked along, mutating as it went into an appeasenik organisation protesting the war in Iraq. Because it is not a registered charity, it has never had to open its books to the public. The fact that it is not a registered, tax-deductible charity might lead one to believe that charity was never its purpose.
It has now come out that Galloway's Jordanian wife, Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, believed to be a niece of Yasser Arafat, was paid £18,000 ($27,000) out of it for "taking care of Miriam, which she is very qualified to do," Galloway assured skeptics. How being a microbiologist qualifies the degree holder for a nursing job for a leukemia patient is unclear. And Galloway didn't mention whether his wife had a leave of absence from her important position as a microbiologist at Glasgow University while she was "taking care of Miriam." It also paid for a flight for her to her native Jordan and for some Arabic computers. More importantly, it paid for travel by Galloway himself to such interesting destinations as Jordan, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and the U.S. And it allegedly provided cover for many a trip to Baghdad. It has now been revealed, at the insistence of the Charities Commission, that the Mariam Appeal received about £800,000 ($1.2m) over a four year period, with more than £500,000 ($750,000) provided by the United Arab Emirates and about £100,000 ($150,000) by Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the remainder was provided by the Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, a long-time opponent of sanctions against Iraq and the campaign's chairman. No wonder they never bothered to register it! Why were the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE so generous? What did they expect of this British Member of Parliament in return?http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7665 (see article below).
Galloway's 'Scottish courage' was no where more evident then a month before his Senate appearence. At an empty meeting for his Respect party in London, Galloway had no one liners for members of a Muslim mob who threatened him and his daughter . He fled the scene,cowering behind a policeman, and his son in law drove off leaving his daughter behind.
"...Police intervened after Mr. Galloway alleged that he was intimidated by Muslim "fundamentalists." http://www.hindu.com/2005/04/22/stories/2005042200861700.htm
"...there were no Respect supporters at the meeting except for Mr Galloway and Lucy, 23. When the two policemen arrived, they asked Mr Galloway if he wanted to leave the meeting, and escorted him to the car outside.
He said: "One cop took him out to Jay's car, put him in and told him to get out of there as quickly as possible. The other policeman rather bravely put himself between George and the mob..."
As Mr Galloway left in his son-in-law's car, his distraught daughter was temporarily left at the scene. She was escorted to safety on the top floor of the property on Globe Road by officers..." http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,19809-1577749_2,00.html
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Apropriately this party for Galloway was on the ground floor .
Respect Party for George Galloway
Mr. George Galloway and the owner of the Sahara Nights club Mr Haleem Kherallah
MIM: The real George Galloway probably couldn't stand up at this party, any more then his lies will stand up to Senate scrutiny.
Respect party for George Galloway at Sahara Nights Club with club owner Haleem Kherallah
http://www.saharanights.co.uk/pastevents.html
Galloway's performance at the Senate was all pomp and no circumstance ;when push literally came to shove as it did in London last month, where Galloway was confronted by a group of Muslim youth, he hid behind a policeman and who escorted him to his son in law's car. They fled the scene leaving his 'distraught' daughter behind on the street who was taken by police to a rooftop for safety.
"...In Mr Galloway's case, the alarm was raised by his son-in-law Jay Stewart who had left the meeting at Withy House on Globe Road, east London, with his children Sean, three, and baby Lola shortly before the disturbance took place.
Mr Galloway's spokesman Ron McKay said: "(George) was held hostage and threatened with death. Can you imagine what that was like ?" http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/554
MIM: George Galloway's much vaunted confrontation with staid United States senators who were taken aback by his brazenness, were apparently unaware that one month before Galloway had ignominiously fled a meeting where he had been confronted by Muslims. A lone policeman protected him from the mob, and Galloway was helped into his son -in law's car, fleeing the scene in such haste that he left his own daughter standing alone on the pavement outside. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/553
MIM : George Galloway , the leader, founder,(and apparently the only members ), of the new Respect party in the UK, has been courting the Muslim vote thinking that his anti Iraq war stance would win him support. But even his abject dhimmitude did not save him from a death threats and accusations of being 'a false prophet' which were made by members of Al Muhajiroun.
It is worth noting that Galloway's eagerness to save his skin lead him to speed from the meeting and leave his 23 year old daughter outside on the sidewalk, where she had to be helped to safety by police. Galloway's ignominious flight from the Muslims he was courting show that even those who believe "if you cant beat them join then" aren't going to be spared if the Islamists attain power. The headline of the article in the Scotsman, read "Galloway Forced to Flee Meeting after 'Death Threats' and recounted that" he was meeting local in a tenant association's room with his daughter Lucy when a 40 strong group of militants burst in.Locking the door behind them, the mob denounced Mr Galloway as a "false prophet" and declared that the sentence for this was "death"."They said for him that would be the gallows - that was presumably a play on his name."
"...Mr Galloway was only rescued by the arrival of two police constables, who escorted him outside to the car of his son-in-law Jay, who had called the police when he saw the gang arrive at the building on Globe Road in Bethnal Green.
According to a witness there were " no Respect supporters at the meeting except for Mr Galloway and Lucy, 23. When the two policemen arrived, they asked Mr Galloway if he wanted to leave the meeting, and escorted him to the car outside.
He said: "One cop took him out to Jay's car, put him in and told him to get out of there as quickly as possible. The other policeman rather bravely put himself between George and the mob.
As Mr Galloway left in his son-in-law's car, his distraught daughter was temporarily left at the scene. She was escorted to safety on the top floor of the property on Globe Road by officers..."
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1486417,00.html
Wednesday May 18, 2005
The Guardian
Whatever else you made of him, when it came to delivering sustained barrages of political invective, you had to salute his indefatigability.
George Galloway stormed up to Capitol Hill yesterday morning for the confrontation of his career, firing scatter-shot insults at the senators who had accused him of profiting illegally from Iraqi oil sales.
They were "neo-cons" and "Zionists" and a "pro-war lynch mob", he raged, who belonged to a "lickspittle Republican committee" that was engaged in creating "the mother of all smokescreens
Before the hearing began, the MP for Bethnal Green and Bow even had some scorn left over to bestow generously upon the pro-war writer Christopher Hitchens. "You're a drink-soaked former-Trotskyist popinjay," Mr Galloway informed him. "Your hands are shaking. You badly need another drink," he added later, ignoring Mr Hitchens's questions and staring intently ahead.
"And you're a drink-soaked..." Eventually Mr Hitchens gave up. "You're a real thug, aren't you?" he hissed, stalking away.
It was a hint of what was to come: not so much political theatre as political bloodsports - and with the senators, at least, it was Mr Galloway who emerged with the flesh between his teeth.
"I know that standards have slipped in Washington in recent years, but for a lawyer, you're remarkably cavalier with any idea of justice," he told Norm Coleman, the Minnesota Republican who chairs the senate investigations committee, after taking his seat at the front of the high-ceilinged hearing room, and swearing an oath to tell the truth.
"I'm here today, but last week you already found me guilty. You traduced my name around the world without ever having asked me a single question."
The culture clash between Mr Galloway's bruising style and the soporific gentility of senate proceedings could hardly have been more pronounced, and drew audible gasps and laughs of disbelief from the audience. "I met Saddam Hussein exactly the same number of times as Donald Rumsfeld met him," Mr Galloway went on. "The difference is that Donald Rumsfeld met him to sell him guns, and to give him maps the better to target those guns."
American reporters seemed as fascinated as the British media: at one point yesterday, before it was his turn to speak, Mr Galloway strode from the room, sending journalists of all nationalities rushing after him - only to discover that he was going to the lavatory.
By condemning him in their report without interviewing him, the senators had already given Mr Galloway the upper hand. But not everything was in his favour. For a start, only two senators were present, sabotaging Mr Galloway's efforts to attack the whole lickspittle lot of them - and one of the two, the Democrat Carl Levin, had spent much of his opening statement attacking the hypocrisy of the US government in allegedly allowing American firms to benefit from Iraqi oil corruption.
Even so, Mr Galloway was in his element, playing the role he relishes the most: the little guy squaring up for a fight with the establishment.
For these purposes, Senator Coleman served symbolically to represent all the evil in the world - the entire Republican party, the conscience of George Bush, the US government and the British government, too: no wonder his weak smile looked so nauseous.
"I gave my heart and soul to stop you committing the disaster that you did commit in invading Iraq," Mr Galloway told him. "Senator, in everything I said about Iraq, I turned out to be right and you turned out to be wrong."
And yet for all his anti-establishment credentials, Mr Galloway is as practised as any of his New Labour enemies at squirming away from awkward questions. Under scrutiny by Senator Levin, he deployed a classic example of the bait-and-switch technique that is the government minister's best defence in difficult questioning.
But Mr Galloway Goes To Washington had never really been an exercise in clarifying the facts. It was an exercise in giving Norm Coleman, and, by extension, the Bush administration, a black eye - mere days after the bloody nose that the Respect MP took credit for having given Tony Blair. And it went as well as Mr Galloway could have wished.
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http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=7665
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The Fall of George GallowayAs dapper British Member of Parliament Gorgeous George Galloway continues to fight for his political life in the time he can spare from issuing writs for libel, he has new cause for concern. Inconvenient facts and unanswered questions about his alleged $500,000 a year kickbacks from Iraq, his involvement in the Palestinian cause, his "charity" the Mariam Appeal and how the money was spent, plus the exact nature of his involvement with Palestinian businessman Fawas Zureiket, have been part of the rich tapestry of his life since his Iraqi connections became public. Now the Director of Public Prosecutions is considering pursuing him for comments during the Iraq war when, during an interview on Abu Dhabi TV, he called on British troops not to fight. Lawyers for service personnel claim his call for soldiers to disobey what he called 'illegal orders' amount to a breach of the Incitement to Disaffection Act 1934. The maximum term, if found guilty, is two years, which doesn't sound so onerous until one remembers that no ex-convict can sit in the Houses of Parliament. And his position as a Member of Parliament is what George Galloway's career is based on.
Galloway dismisses the suit with typical insouciance, saying, "I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: He incited them to disaffect'"
Harder to put aside with an airy wave are the accusations that he used the proceeds from his Miriam Appeal which he started ostensibly to bring an Iraqi child sick with leukemia to Britain for treatment, for personal purposes. It did not cost the hundreds of thousands of pounds that were donated to the fund by members of the British public, and also Middle Eastern governments, to cure Miriam. Long after Miriam was declared leukemia-free, the charity rocked along, mutating as it went into an appeasenik organisation protesting the war in Iraq. Because it is not a registered charity, it has never had to open its books to the public. The fact that it is not a registered, tax-deductible charity might lead one to believe that charity was never its purpose.
It has now come out that Galloway's Jordanian wife, Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad, believed to be a niece of Yasser Arafat, was paid £18,000 ($27,000) out of it for "taking care of Miriam, which she is very qualified to do," Galloway assured skeptics. How being a microbiologist qualifies the degree holder for a nursing job for a leukemia patient is unclear. And Galloway didn't mention whether his wife had a leave of absence from her important position as a microbiologist at Glasgow University while she was "taking care of Miriam." It also paid for a flight for her to her native Jordan and for some Arabic computers. More importantly, it paid for travel by Galloway himself to such interesting destinations as Jordan, Romania, the United Arab Emirates, Lebanon, and the U.S. And it allegedly provided cover for many a trip to Baghdad. It has now been revealed, at the insistence of the Charities Commission, that the Mariam Appeal received about £800,000 ($1.2m) over a four year period, with more than £500,000 ($750,000) provided by the United Arab Emirates and about £100,000 ($150,000) by Saudi Arabia. The bulk of the remainder was provided by the Jordanian businessman, Fawaz Zureikat, a long-time opponent of sanctions against Iraq and the campaign's chairman. No wonder they never bothered to register it! Why were the governments of Saudi Arabia and the UAE so generous? What did they expect of this British Member of Parliament in return?
Galloway's ex-chauffeur was often bemused by his attitude to money. His own salary came partly from Galloway's legitimate expenses as a Member of Parliament, but also from other sources. Said the ex-chauffeur, "As time went by, [the money] would come from the strangest places. Usually, his wife would pay me with checks from a company called Finjan Ltd - a company of which Mr. George and his wife are the only directors." Earlier, he was paid with a check from the Emergency Committee on Iraq and Palestine [a campaign chaired by Galloway, that raised funds among anti-war protesters to campaign against the U.S. and Israel]. The check was signed by Stuart Halford [who was the secretary of the Mariam campaign].
The chauffeur claimed that after the events of September 11, Galloway remarked, "The United States has killed much higher numbers in Iraq with the sanctions." A somewhat touching concern for the ordinary Iraqi in the street, given that the money trail leads to payments from the Saddam regime directly to the oil-for-food-and medicines UN administered program. Some of the oil revenues meant to provide the means for the purchase of food and medicine for the Iraqi people were being diverted into the silk lined pockets of Armani suits worn by one Rt Hon. George Galloway, MP.
For a man born in an attic in a slum in the industrial city of Glasgow, Gorgeous George developed some expensive tastes round about the time he became committed to the Palestinian cause and forged a relationships with an old friend of his wife's from university in Jordan. Fawas Zureikat claimed that catch-all Middle Eastern term, "a businessman." He had also at one time been involved as an oil trader. He was also the Chairman of the Miriam Appeal.
But funds from the Miriam Appeal pale beside funds from Saddam Hussein who allegedly authorized payments to Galloway of approximately $550,000 per year, filtered out of the oil-for-food program, over a period of 10 years.
According to a document uncovered by Daily Telegraph reporter David Blair in the remains of the Foreign Ministry in Baghdad, Iraqis decided Galloway needed more cash: "His projects and future plans for the benefit of [Iraq] 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 necessary commercial opportunities to provide him with a financial income under commercial cover without being connected to him directly." The document went on to describe a meeting between Galloway and an Iraqi intelligence officer and states that Galloway sought to "ensure confidentiality in his financial and commercial relations with the country and reassure his personal security." Galloway, the letter went on, "needs continuous financial support from Iraq.". It also describes a meeting between Galloway and an Iraqi intelligence officer and states that Galloway sought to "ensure confidentiality in his financial and commercial relations with the country and reassure his personal security."
The document found by the Telegraph reporter and translated from the Arabic has now been authenticated by a ranking former official in the Iraqi Foreign Office who recognized the signature of the high level individual who signed the memorandum.
Two or three days later, the Christian Science Monitor, working from a different document, reported that Galloway received $3 million a year from April 4, 2000, to January 14, 2003.
A letter accompanying that final payment authorizes the "Manager of the security department, in the name of President Saddam Hussein, to order a gratuity to be issued to Mr. George Galloway of British nationality in the amount of three million dollars ." It praises Galloway for "his courageous and daring stands against the enemies of Iraq, like Blair, the British Prime Minister, and for his opposition in the House of Commons and Lords against all outrageous lies against our patient people."
At one time, Galloway apparently tried to up the ante, but Saddam, having fed so many feet first into the shredder, was a man who knew when to put his foot down and told him, through an emissary, that Iraq couldn't afford to give him any more.
In response to the above accusations Galloway has said, "I have never asked Iraq for money to help our campaign. Our campaign was funded throughout by private donations and by governmental donations friendly to Britain and the United States." When questioned, he insisted that he did not think the campaign had received money, even indirectly, from the Iraqi regime or from oil trading. He says he has not solicited money from the Iraqi regime, either directly or indirectly, for any other purpose.
Galloway also seems to have been involved in the murky world of overseas dissidents, apparently acting as a liaison between the House of Saud and Islamic dissidents in London. He had a secret meeting in Morocco in 1996 to discuss the political situation in Saudi Arabia with Crown Prince Mohammed (now King) and a senior Moroccan intelligence official. We do not know the extent of his involvement, nor why his presence was considered necessary. But it seems strange that a sitting member of the British Parliament should be involved in such a web of Middle Eastern entanglements when his constituents back home in his needy area of Glasgow could do with an advocate.
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http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=22&art_id=qw1116420123127U232
5/18/05
Galloway's charity fund under the microscope
London - Britain's charity watchdog said on Wednesday that it will re-examine a fund set up by lawmaker George Galloway after a United States Senate Committee said it may have been used to funnel Iraqi oil allocations from Saddam Hussein - allegations denied by the legislator.
The Charity Commission last year said the Mariam Appeal, established in 1998 to help a four-year-old Iraqi girl suffering from leukemia, did not misuse funds for non-charitable purposes. It spent more than a year investigating the fund.
But the Charity Commission's director of legal services Kenneth Dibble said the body had asked to see US Senate evidence in the case and would re-examine the evidence it already had to establish if any action should be taken.
"When we have that information (from the US Senate committee) we will look again at the material which we assessed during the course of the inquiry and consider whether anything further needs to be done," Dibble told British Broadcasting Corporation radio.
Galloway appeared before US senators on Tuesday, denying accusations that he profited from the United Nations oil-for-food programme and accusing them of unfairly tarnishing his name.
The Senate committee claims that Galloway funnelled allocations through the Mariam Appeal and received allocations worth 20 million barrels from 2000 to 2003.
Dibble said the Charity Commission's previous inquiry reconstructed the income and expenditure of the Mariam Appeal by looking at its bank accounts.
"With the help of the trustees, who we asked various questions in relation to payments, we were able to establish at least that the majority of the moneys were applied for purposes that were charitable," Dibble added.
He said there had been "limitations" on the inquiry, as some of the records of the appeal had been taken out of the country by its then chairman, the Jordanian businessman Fawaz Zureikat. - Sapa-AP
Published on the Web by IOL on 2005-05-18 15:35:53
MIM: A 2004 investigation by the UK Charity Commission into Galloway and his Syrian wife's 'charity' front the Mariam Appeal uncovered irregularities and wrongdoing but decided not to take action. Among the irregularities uncovered was the fact that the 'charity' had not been registered as such.
http://www.charity-commission.gov.uk/investigations/inquiryreports/mariam2.asp
The Mariam Appeal
(Unregistered)
Introduction
1. This is a statement of the results of an inquiry under section 8 of the Charities Act 1993 ("the Act").
2. The Mariam Appeal ("the Appeal") was established in 1998. The objects of the Appeal as stated in its Constitution were: "to provide medicines, medical equipment and medical assistance to the people of Iraq; to highlight the causes and results of the cancer epidemic in Iraq and to arrange for the medical treatment of a number of Iraqi children outside Iraq".
3. Part of the Appeal's activities were to bring a young child Mariam Hamza' to the UK to receive treatment for Leukaemia, a cancer which the founders of the Appeal considered to have been caused by the programme of sanctions imposed by the United Nations and the use of weapons containing depleted uranium during and since the 1991 Gulf War.
Issues
4. In April 2003 the Charity Commission received a complaint that had been presented to the Attorney General in response to a newspaper article. The complainant was concerned that the funds held by the Mariam Appeal were held for purposes which were, or were capable of being, charitable, and that these funds had been used for non-charitable purposes, including the funding of visits abroad.
5. The Commission opened an evaluation on 24th April 2003. During the course of this evaluation, the Commission requested information from individuals connected to the Appeal. The Commission established that the fund-raising literature circulated prior to Mariam's arrival in the UK for hospital treatment expressed the purpose of the Appeal in charitable form and that the funds raised in connection with this were for charitable purposes. As the Commission had insufficient information from the Appeal at that point to satisfy itself that the causes for concern were unfounded, on 27th June 2003, an inquiry under Section 8 of the Act was opened to investigate how the monies raised for the Appeal between March 1998 and April 1999 had been spent.
6. At the same time, the Commission continued to evaluate the later stages of the Appeal. In the course of the inquiry, the Commission obtained a copy of the Appeal's Constitution that had been used to open a bank account in the Appeal's name and after consideration and review of its contents the Commission concluded that the Appeal's objects were charitable.
7. On 13th November 2003 a second inquiry was opened into the Appeal to investigate how the monies raised throughout the lifetime of the Appeal had been expended.
Findings
8. The Commission concluded that the objects of the Appeal were charitable and that, given the level of income raised in the name of the Appeal, it should have been registered with the Commission and placed on the Register of Charities. The Constitution placed the control and management of the administration of the Appeal with the members of the Executive Committee of the Appeal, who in accordance with the provisions of the Act were the charity trustees.
9. The Commission concluded that those persons who founded the Appeal were unaware that they had created a charity. The founders had received legal advice, that the Commission considers to be in error, that the Constitution did not create a charity.
10. The Commission used powers under Section 8 and Section 9 of the Act to obtain details of the opening of the Appeal's bank accounts, the signatories on the various mandates and the receipt and payment of funds.
11. Apart from public donations it was established that the major funders of the Appeal were the United Arab Emirates, a donor from Saudi Arabia and a Jordanian Businessman Fawaz Zuriekat.
12. The Commission has been unable to obtain all the books and records of the Appeal. Mr Galloway, the first Chairman of the Appeal, has stated that this documentation was sent to Amman and Baghdad in 2001 when Fawaz Zuriekat became Chairman of the Appeal. Mr Galloway has informed the Commission that this documentation is no longer under the control of the original trustees of the Appeal and cannot be located by them. Mr Galloway confirmed that the Appeal did not produce annual profit and loss accounts or balance sheets.
13. The Commission received assurances from Mr Galloway that the monies received by him from the Appeal related to expenses incurred in his duties as Chairman of the Appeal.
14. The Commission established that Dr Amineh Abu-Zayyad and Stuart Halford, two of the original trustees, received unauthorised benefits in the form of salary payments from the Appeal's funds. The information provided to the Commission suggests that the Executive Committee considered these payments were necessary and were unaware that they were unauthorised. The Commission accepts that none of the Executive Committee acted in bad faith and that the services provided were of value to the Appeal.
15. Some of the activities of the Appeal were political by nature, in particular a campaign to end the sanctions against Iraq. The information provided is consistent with the view that these activities were ancillary in terms of expenditure to the purposes of the Mariam Appeal. The trustees could reasonably have formed the view that this would have the impact of enabling treatment for sick children.
16. The Commission is satisfied that Mariam's treatment and aftercare were funded by the Appeal in furtherance of its purposes.
Outcomes
17. The Commission informed the founders of the Appeal that its objects were charitable and that accordingly, the Appeal should have been registered with the Commission.
18. The Commission informed the trustees who had received salary payments from the Appeal's funds that these were indeed unauthorised benefits made in breach of the trusts of the Appeal. The Commission has informed these trustees and Mr Galloway that, as the services provided were of value to the Appeal and as there was no evidence of bad faith on behalf of any member of the Executive Committee, none of them being aware that these payments were unauthorised and believing them to be necessary, the Commission would not be pursuing recovery of those sums.
19. Given that the political activities of the Appeal were capable of being viewed as ancillary to the purposes of the Appeal and in light of the fact that the Appeal was closed and in view of the difficulties in obtaining the books and records of the Appeal, the Commission decided that it would not be proportionate to pursue its inquiries further.
20. The Commission advised the trustees that they had a duty to keep accounting records under trust law and as a charity should have kept and produced accounts in accordance with the provisions of the Act. However given that the founders of the Appeal were unaware that they had created a charity and because the Commission has found no evidence that the funds of the Appeal were misapplied (other than the payment of unauthorised benefits to trustees), the Commission will be taking no further action on this matter.
21. The inquiries were closed on 17th May 2004.
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http://www.a2mediagroup.com/print.php?a=5192&sid=ca813415e90dc1b7b8815fc27af97357
MIM: Update: Based on the release of new information the UK Charity Commission has announced plans to reopen their investigation of the Mariam Appeal. May 17 2005
Charity Commission Statement in response to George Galloway's evidence to US Senate Sub-Committee 17 May 05 Although we have not yet seen a transcript of Mr Galloway's evidence to the US Senate Sub-Committee today, we understand that his comments included the following
) The Mariam Appeal, founded by Mr Galloway, was subject to a Charity Commission investigation in which all money in and all money out of the Mariam account was looked at and no impropriety was found.
2) The Charity Commission investigation into the Mariam Appeal found no donation from any oil company.
The Charity Commission would like to restate a number of points of fact regarding its inquiry.
The Mariam Appeal was established in 1998. The Charity Commission opened an investigation into the Appeal in 2003, after we received a complaint that was presented to the Attorney General in response to a newspaper article.
By 2003, the Appeal had been closed and the books and records had been sent to Jordan in 2001 where the then Chairman of the Appeal, Mr Fawaz Zuriekat resided; the Commission was therefore unable to review them. Our inquiry therefore had to rely on details we were able to obtain from the Appeal's bank accounts.
The Appeal did not produce annual income and expenditure accounts or balance sheets.
While we were able to review income and expenditure from the bank statements of the Appeal, which we had to obtain using our legal powers direct from banks, we were not able to verify all aspects of expenditure because of the lack of proper documentation.
However, we found no evidence that the funds of the Appeal were misapplied (other than the payment of some unauthorised benefits to trustees which were made in good faith).
We did not undertake a detailed review of sources of income to the Appeal because the original concern prompting our inquiry was about the use to which funds had been put.
Our inquiry did not find evidence of donations direct from oil companies but noted that one of the major funders of the Appeal was Fawaz Zuriekat, an individual named on 12 May 2005 by the US Senate Sub-Committee as allegedly connected with payments in relation to allocations of oil under the Iraq Oil for Food Programme.
We have no evidence to show that the income received by the Fund from Mr Zuriekat came from an improper source.
But had the recent allegations been known to us at the time of our inquiry, we would have made the information available to the appropriate UK authorities for them to decide whether the Mariam Appeal had received funds from an illegal source.
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/624