Saudis 'buy Eurofighters from UK' Saudi Arabia says it is to buy 72 Eurofighter Typhoon jets from UK firm BAE Systems for £4.43bn.
The Ministry of Defence would not confirm the deal had been completed, saying negotiations are continuing. The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) dropped a probe last year into a sale of jets to the Saudis in the 1980s. The UK government said the decision was on national security grounds, but reports said the Saudis had threatened to pull out if the probe went ahead. A report on the official Saudi news agency SPA says that the price paid per aircraft is the same that Britain's Royal Air Force pays for the aircraft. Critics attacked the decision to drop the SFO investigation, saying the government had put commercial interest before ethics and had given in to Saudi blackmail. In addition to the price paid for the planes, there is also expected to be a lucrative deal for the munitions that go with them and for their maintenance. The negotiations had been foreshadowed by a UK inquiry into allegations Saudi Arabia took bribes from BAE under a military-plane deal struck between the two nations two decades ago. Britain's Serious Fraud Office last year investigated BAE Systems' £43bn Al-Yamamah deal in 1985, which provided Hawk and Tornado jets plus other military equipment to Saudi Arabia. However the investigation was pulled by the British government in December 2006 in a move supported by then-prime minister Tony Blair amid statements about the UK's national interests. Story from BBC NEWS: http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6998774.stm [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: [email protected] Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
