THE GUARDIAN: More than £100m was secretly paid by the arms company BAE to sell warplanes to South Africa, according to allegations in a detailed police dossier seen by the Guardian yesterday.
The leaked evidence from South African police and the British Serious Fraud Office quotes a BAE agent recommending "financially incentivising" politicians.
In the arms deal, the new ANC government in South Africa agreed to spend a controversial £1.6bn buying fleets of Hawk and Gripen warplanes.
Critics said the country, beset by unemployment and HIV/Aids, could not afford it. The Hawks, rejected by the military, cost twice as much as Italian equivalents.
But the then South African defence minister Joe Modise and a key official, Chippy Shaik, insisted on the purchase.
BAE is accused in the reports of corrupt relationships with an arms tycoon, John Bredenkamp, recently blacklisted in the US for his links with Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe. Bredenkamp's blacklisting freezes his assets in the US.
BAE's former marketing director for southern Africa, Allan McDonald, has been speaking to police, the leaked files say. He allegedly told them Bredenkamp "gave progress reports directly to Mike Turner". Turner, who has been interviewed under caution by the SFO, stepped down last year as BAE's chief executive.
Bredenkamp-linked companies were paid £40m by BAE to promote the arms deal. According to McDonald, "Bredenkamp suggested identifying the key decision-makers, with a view to 'financially incentivising them' to make the right decision". >>> David Leigh and Rob Evans | December 6, 2008
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