The Real World- the Point of Death
Page 9
Question didn’t require answering.
“So their board discusses the matter and decides not to pay anything to this official, refuses point-blank. Result? They’re immediately removed from the equation. The contract option’s now offered to Bartolome. This same official was introduced to the company’s senior management by Garlinge. He books the hotel, same one they’d met Fairfields in, and he arranges for them to meet up, organises everything, etc., and for what he does in facilitating this deal from start to finish, Garlinge receives a hefty five-figure cheque, paid directly into an offshore account so the taxman here doesn’t get a whiff of it. Bartolome ultimately ends up with an order worth many millions of euros to the company. Bribery and tax dodging, and from a Tory MP.” He chuckled to himself.
“He was an MP when this occurred?” This was a serious breach of Parliamentary etiquette if what Graves was saying was true, not to mention a criminal offence.
“Most of the negotiations occurred whilst he still worked for Bartolome, but, yeah, by the time he banked the cheque, he was an MP; been one for a couple of months by then.”
“You can prove this about the money?”
“Oh yes, we most certainly can.” He smiled. “We’ve copies of Bartolome’s last set of accounts, amongst other things.”
“What other things?”
“As I said earlier, minutes of board meetings authorising Garlinge to meet with this official as they’ve done business before and facilitate the deal, things like that. We’ve also got a copy of the accounts kept by whoever operated Bartolome’s slush fund, records of how much Garlinge was authorised to invest in furthering the contract negotiations,” he sneered as he made quotation marks with his index fingers, “to help ensure Bartolome came in as Bozetti’s business partner.”
“Pay a bribe, you mean.” I could read between the lines.
“Correct.”
“Did Garlinge already know this Bahraini official?”
“Fairfields are relatively inexperienced in dealing with Middle Eastern countries. They’re not a very large firm; they’ve mainly been providing weapons for gun shops and trade fairs, and they were looking to move further into the international market. But, poor naïve fools, they hadn’t realised it’s not only the quality of your product which counts in the armaments world; it’s also how willing you are to grease palms” – quotation marks with his fingers again – “to make the wheels turn. They didn’t realise you gotta be willing to offer sweeteners even to be considered a player in the game. Fairfields were genuinely shocked to realise, in order to do business in the Middle East, you’ve gotta pay bribes or sweeteners or whatever just to get your foot inside the door, just to even have introductory talks with anyone, whereas Bartolome’s a long-established company, well versed in the game, and they know exactly how it’s played. Plus they’ve done lots of business with Middle Eastern countries like Bahrain. Garlinge and this negotiator would almost certainly be familiar with each other because Bartolome knows how to keep the wheels turning.” He paused for a moment. “Anyway, this’s the easy part, the straightforward bit.”
“Meaning what?” I was curious.
“Meaning, aside from bribery, the real reason Garlinge’s scared of coming clean” – he gave me a direct look – “is because those particular weapons, the L8505s and the handguns, were shipped off to Bozetti, which was the stated destination on the End User Certificate. Bozetti were then supposed to forward them on to Bahrain. They never reached Bozetti, though; they actually ended up in Burundi, and Garlinge must at least have suspected something like this. You wanna know why?”
I indicated I did.
“Because the Bahraini he dealt with was someone called Ibrahim Mohammed, who’s well known in the arms world as a facilitator in deals like this. He’s an international middleman, fixes shady arms deals like this all over the world, for which he gets a very considerable piece of any sale. Firms like Bartolome use him to facilitate arms negotiations.”
I nodded. He continued.
“Right. So, here’s the thing.” He sat upright. “Fairfields pulled out of the negotiations, not just because of bribes; they didn’t wanna get sucked into some kind of arms scandal. They’d an inkling about what was really happening and they pulled out. My sources tell me they were tipped off about a likely scandal, though obviously I can’t verify this.”
“What was this?”
“Not sure how they knew,” he mused, “but they must have discovered what they’d be selling would be going somewhere other than intended. They realised this when they refused to pay sweeteners, so they withdrew from the negotiations.”
If they’d been made aware of this, it suggested someone, possibly inside the intelligence community, had had a word with the company and tipped them off. But why tip Fairfields off about this sale? Did this sale have a wider dimension?
“You’re sure about this?” I asked.
“Yep, I’m positive.” He sounded very certain. “I mean, I’m surprised they even got involved in the negotiations. Everyone in the industry knows, in order to do business with individuals like Ibrahim Mohammed, you have to bribe your way in.”
Graves stopped for a moment.
“Anyway, the worst thing about this sale?” He spat the sentence out. “The weapons Bartolome thought it was sending to Bozetti not only ended up in Burundi; they were used by the Burundian army against its own populace. You remember the massacre in the centre of Bujumbura five months ago?”
I did. Earlier this year, a large, peaceful pro-democracy rally in the centre of the capital, Bujumbura, had turned into a mass riot. The Burundian government, attempting to show the world it wasn’t the repressive regime it was reported to be, had allowed a pro-democracy rally to take place, but the government had taken exception to the size of this demonstration in a park in the city centre, as many more demonstrators than expected had turned up, and police had been ordered to stop the rally. Soldiers from the Burundian army had been placed on standby alert and stationed nearby as police attempted to break up the meeting and disperse the crowds.
But someone had fired a shot – it had never been established whom – and soldiers had taken this as their cue and opened fire on the crowd. By the time the shooting finally stopped several minutes later, the UN observers present estimated around forty to fifty people had died at the rally, though an exact body count hadn’t been permitted by the army, who were intent on clearing the park. The body count was probably higher because there were no records of how many later died from gunshot wounds. The actions of the soldiers, plus the pictures of dead civilians, which included women and children, had made headlines worldwide and had been roundly condemned from the floor of the United Nations.
An American news team from ABC, who’d been allowed into the country as part of the campaign by the Burundian government to suggest it was not hostile to the Western media and a free press, had filmed the rally and the shootings, and in its subsequent investigation it had discovered the brand-new weaponry used by the Burundian army in the massacre had been obtained from a company based in Western Europe, contrary to an EU ban on arms sales to Burundi. The name of the manufacturer had not been publicised.
I indicated I knew what had happened. He continued.
“So, you can see why Garlinge’s worried about this being published. If it becomes public knowledge he was involved in a deal which saw Western arms being provided to a regime like Burundi’s, given what we know what was done with them . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He didn’t need to. The implication was obvious.
“Arms and weaponry’s the most corrupt industry in the world,” he said, “even more so than big tobacco or big oil, and practically every government is complicit in it, despite everything they’ll tell you about maintaining an ethical foreign policy.” He gave a sardonic smile. “This’s because the arms industry’s a permanent pressure on all governments, always lobbying for more and more sales and selling to nations that no democrac
y should go anywhere near. Repressive nations like Saudi Arabia, for instance.” He stood up and pointed to a map behind his chair. “This country’s had arms sales with Saudi to the tune of nearly £4 billion in the last year or so, and the Saudis use all this firepower we supply them with to wage war in Yemen. You know the Defence Secretary’s response when this was pointed out in the House? I quote: The Saudis are friends of the West, as well as our strategic ally, and the sale of arms is a major contributor to our balance of payments, and, anyway, if we didn’t sell arms to them, someone else would. Is this moral bankruptcy or what?”
He shook his head, sat down again and leant on his desk. “Any political party in this country which says it’s going to reduce spending on defence gets slaughtered by the press, especially the tabloids, so, because the Labour and Liberal parties don’t wanna be smeared as being soft on defence,” he sneered, “companies like Bartolome spend their lives opening an unlocked door.”
His eyes had lit up and he was in evangelical mode. “The arms industry brings out all the hypocrisy in Western governments. We rightly lecture Saudi Arabia and Qatar about their many human rights abuses, feign righteous indignation when someone’s flogged because they lobbied for women’s rights or consumed alcohol, or when a woman’s stoned to death because she’s an adulteress, and yet this country’s the biggest supplier of weaponry to the Saudi army. We sell billions of pounds’ worth of arms to a corrupt regime like Saudi, and we train their officers at Sandhurst. Did you know this country even trained a butcher like Idi Amin at Sandhurst?”
He was on a roll and his voice rose in mounting incredulity. “You know how many third-world nations there are like Burundi, whose populations live in squalor and destitution on appallingly low per-capita incomes, with barely enough money to buy rice? People talk about being poor in this country, but families over here spend more going to the cinema than most Burundian families have to live on for a month, yet Burundi’s government can afford some of the most advanced military hardware on earth.”
As he spoke, he pointed to a box on a large red and yellow poster on the wall behind me, which listed arms spending by governments as a percentage of that country’s GDP. I was beginning to feel like I was back at King’s.
“You wanna know why this is the case?” He rubbed his left thumb against the first two fingers of his hand. “The likes of Charles Garlinge taking bribes is why.”
“Thanks for the lecture, but, for the moment, I’m just interested in Bozetti.”
“Yeah, sorry, I get a bit carried away sometimes.” He smiled wanly. “I fucking hate the arms industry and especially rich people like Garlinge taking bribes to further its aims. Anyway, to sum up, Fairfields pulls out, Bartolome steps in, contract agreed, the weapons sold don’t go to Bozetti, they end up in Burundi and soon afterwards, people start dying.”
I weighed up everything Graves had just told me. “I wanna be clear on this. Are you saying Garlinge knew where these arms were going?”
“Either he knew or he strongly suspected they were going somewhere other than Bozetti, or he didn’t really care once he’d been paid, quite likely because he’d never expect to be found out. He’s been with Bartolome long enough to know how the game’s played, and in particular who the main players are. Bartolome entered into a contract with Bozetti, with the deal brokered by Ibrahim Mohammed. Bozetti either ends up selling part of them on to Burundi themselves or else they went straight to Burundi.”
He paused to take a sip of water. “So, the best you can say about Garlinge is he acted very naïvely for a man with his experience of the arms trade. Otherwise he was an active party to the deal, which personally is what I think, or he knew and was indifferent to where the arms were going. Either way, he was paid a large five-figure sum for what he did in the negotiations between Bartolome and Ibrahim Mohammed. That’s indisputable. This’s just one example; I’m prepared to bet it isn’t the only one either.”
If all this was true, and if it became known that Garlinge had received an undeclared payday for his involvement in a dubious arms sale that had ended in the massacre of civilians, Garlinge would be skinned alive and hung out to dry. The press would slaughter him.
“Why does an established, reputable company like Bartolome use someone like Ibrahim Mohammed to facilitate an arms deal?”
“Why do you think?” He looked at me like I was a student slow to grasp something obvious. “He can get things done quicker. He’s known in the trade as a fixer and he knows everyone worth knowing. That’s the official reason. But in the real world, the reason, of course, is he knows who to bribe. He knows how much and where they want it paid. He arranges for bribes or inducements to go to the right recipient.”
The real world. Interesting; Garlinge had used the same phrase earlier. “Inducements?”
“Yeah, it’s not just money makes the world go around, you know.” He smiled. “There’re drugs, women, young boys, alcohol et cetera. He can supply whatever’s required by the buyer.”
He paused for a few seconds.
“You know what’s really interesting, though? The Bahraini government has never once complained about arms intended for them ending up in Burundi. What does this tell you? I think this was a Burundi deal from the outset, with Bozetti’s name used to provide some degree of legitimacy. I’ll bet Mohammed was using his contacts with Bahrain as a cover.”
We were both quiet whilst I considered what Graves had said.
“Does Bartolome even know you have what I’m presuming is confidential information, which you’re planning to use?” I asked.
“Someone obviously does,” he said, laughing, “’cause they sent it to us, but we’ve not told them, if that’s what you mean. Probably why they’ve not gone to court seeking an injunction to prevent us from publishing.” He seemed pleased. “But, given Garlinge has connections to Bartolome, you have to assume someone in the company hierarchy knows about this. I’ll bet Garlinge’s been back asking questions.”
He sat back, tapping his fingers on his desk. I waited.
“I mean, Garlinge doesn’t even have to make a public admission. He quietly resigns his seat, that’d be a kind of victory for a group like ours, as well as some degree of justice. Someone like Garlinge wouldn’t be prosecuted anyway. People like him never are; too well connected, and it’d be too embarrassing for Government to admit a company it does business with is corrupt, especially when one of its own MPs is involved, so giving up his seat in the House is as good as we can hope for. I mean, come on, he’s an honourable member of the House,” he scoffed, “so he should do the honourable thing.”
I’d heard enough. I stood up.
He was still talking. “When Cassie spoke to Garlinge, she said we’ll wait a while for him to come clean. But, if he continues to stonewall, we make available to the press and the Serious Fraud Office everything in our possession, and then we sit back and watch Garlinge squirm as the shit hits the fan.”
He was beaming broadly as I left.
*
Late afternoon. Smitherman asked for a progress report. As I sat he stated he’d been in contact with Colonel Stimpson regarding the Armswatch claims, and he wanted to know what I’d heard. I’d heard a lot and was sure I’d made progress, but what I wasn’t sure about was in which direction I’d progressed.
I began by explaining what I’d been told by Graves; why they were absolutely certain Charles Garlinge had been engaged in corrupt business practices. I mentioned the claim of a slush fund and the existence of accounts, seen by Armswatch, which confirmed such a fund existed. I outlined the incident where the weapons made by Bartolome, supposedly under licence for Bozetti, had ended up in Burundi, with devastating consequences.
I then outlined my talk with Garlinge himself and my belief he’d seemed indifferent to the claims made; his only apparent concern had been keeping these details away from the press. I ended my soliloquy by mentioning that at no time had Garlinge denied any of the claims made by Armswatch.
“So,” he said at last, “your sense of the situation from what you’ve heard is, what, you think there’s sufficient evidence to justify investigating further?”
“I think so, yes.”
Whilst we’d not seen whatever it was Armswatch had in its possession, my feeling was what I’d been told by Graves was very likely correct. Claims like the ones Armswatch were making wouldn’t be made unless they were absolutely certain about their information, because they’d have too much to lose making unsubstantiated allegations about an MP, particularly one who’d indicated he’d sue for defamation if any such allegations became public knowledge. My sense was also that Garlinge knew he’d been caught out, but was more concerned about the wider political impact if what he’d done ever made it into the media.
I concluded by saying Armswatch’s claims were probably accurate, and they’d cite the public interest in making this available to the press, as well as to the Serious Fraud Office. Whether Armswatch had any defence under existing law for using confidential information supplied by a whistleblower in this way, though, was one for the lawyers or MI5.
“How did Armswatch come to get this information?” Smitherman asked.
“Graves said they’d been sent it. Didn’t say who by, but obviously from someone inside Bartolome. He also claimed they’ve sources inside the arms trade who’ve verified what they’ve seen as accurate.”
“What does Armswatch hope to get out of this?”
“According to Graves, they just want him to admit he’s taken bribes or, if not, then resign his seat.”
Smitherman pondered the situation for a moment. “And if he does neither of these?”
“Then Garlinge’ll get the front pages all to himself.” I grinned. “Graves says they’ll give all documentary evidence they have to the Serious Fraud Office and the press if he keeps stonewalling.”