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10/28/2005:

"Galloway given 18m barrels of oil from Saddam, claims independent US report"

George Galloway faces fresh allegations of benefiting from Saddam Hussein's regime in a report into corruption in the United Nation's oil-for-food programme for Iraq.

An independent investigation by the former US Federal Reserve chairman Paul Volcker has charged that the MP received an allocation of 18 million barrels of oil from the regime. It also claims that $120,000 (£67,000) in revenues from oil sales was paid into the bank account of Mr Galloway's estranged wife.

The money allegedly paid to Amineh Abu Zayyad is a separate sum from the $150,000 that another investigation, by the US Senate, claimed she had received from oil sales.

As Mr Volcker's report was published in New York yesterday, the former government minister Denis MacShane demanded a joint committee of the House of Commons and US Congress should inquire into the "serious allegations" against Mr Galloway.

...Mr Galloway said last night: "How many times must I repeat this; I've never had a penny through oil deals and no one has produced a shred of evidence that I have.

"I have never asked anyone to act for me, as Fawaz Zureikat, who is alleged to be my intermediary, has said repeatedly. This is all a tissue of lies and a lie doesn't become a truth through repetition."
independent.co.uk