Scotland yard is to take the first steps toward a possible criminal investigation against George Galloway, who faces an 18-day suspension from the Commons over his financial links to Saddam Hussein's regime, The Daily Telegraph can disclose today.Detectives are to seek documents from the Serious Fraud Office, which carried out a previous investigation, to establish whether there are grounds to prosecute Mr Galloway. The police may seek his bank accounts after a report by Sir Philip Mawer, the Parliamentary Standards Commisioner, concluded yesterday that Mr Galloway's Mariam Appeal charity received large sums from Saddam's manipulation of the United Nations oil-for-food programme.
Sir Philip said: "Mr Galloway has consistently denied, prevaricated and fudged in relation to the now undeniable evidence that the Mariam Appeal, and he indirectly through it, received money derived, via the Oil for Food programme, from the Iraqi regime."
He added: "Mr Galloway through his controlling position in the appeal, benefited from those monies, in terms of furtherance of his political objectives." He went on: "He [Mr Galloway] had received such support at least recklessly or negligently, and probably knowingly." But Sir Philip said there was no evidence that Mr Galloway had benefited personally from the programme or that any funds had entered his personal bank account.
The 181-page report said that the Respect MP had "consistently failed to live up to the expectation of openness and straightforwardness".
The investigation was triggered by The Daily Telegraph in April 2003 when David Blair, a foreign correspondent, discovered documents purporting to be about Mr Galloway in the Iraqi foreign ministry in Baghdad shortly after Saddam's overthrow. The papers claimed to show that he received funds from Saddam's regime for the Mariam Appeal. The committee report demands that Mr Galloway apologise to David Blair, who he accused of perjury, and to the Commons. In December 2004 The Daily Telegraph lost a libel action brought by Mr Galloway who was paid £150,000 in damages.
Detectives are studying the section of the report where Sir Philip referred to Mr Galloway's bank accounts which he had not seen. The report said: "I have not pressed for access to bank accounts . . . primarily because I believe that embarking on such action could take me into matters more properly within the jurisdiction of other agencies."