BAE denies secret arms payments to Saudi prince

0 Comments | AFP, June, 2007

LONDON (AFP) — British defence firm BAE and Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan denied news reports on Thursday that BAE secretly paid the prince hundreds of millions of pounds to grease Britain's biggest weapons deal.

The company denied any wrongdoing and said that all payments linked to the Al-Yamamah contract, signed in 1985, had been made with "the express approval of both the Saudi and British governments."

Prince Bandar's lawyers issued a statement "categorically denying" he received any "improper secret commissions or backhanders" over the Al-Yamamah weapons deal, BBC television said.

Both the Guardian newspaper and the BBC alleged that BAE had made secret payments to accounts controlled by the former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States,...