Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: 4th Briton beats rap on exports to Iraq Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 15:11:15 EST Message-ID: \SE A;WORLD \SS (WS) \HD 4th Briton beats rap on exports to Iraq \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT LONDON LONDON (AP) - A British businessman was cleared yesterday of illegally exporting arms-making equipment to Iraq after saying he would prove the government knew about the sales. The acquittal of Keith Bailey, the chief executive of BSA Tools, followed the collapse Monday of a case against three other British businessmen on the same charges. Prime Minister John Major, who has been pitched into a new crisis by the debacle, tried to fend off opposition charges that he knew about the sales, which were worth more than $37 million. "I feel sorry for the government in a way," Mr. Bailey, 57, said as he left the court. "I don't think they deliberately set out to arm Saddam Hussein," he said. "I think they wanted to be in Iraq at the start of reconstruction following the war with Iran. . . . I think they were seeking to promote trade like every other country in Europe." The sales took place in the late 1980s, when Margaret Thatcher was prime minister. Mr. Major was finance minister in her Cabinet and succeeded her in November 1990, two months before the Persian Gulf war allies launched airstrikes to drive Iraq from Kuwait. "Every parliamentary answer I have given or letter I have dispatched has been based on the position as I understood it to be," Mr. Major told the House of Commons yesterday. In court, prosecutors in Mr. Bailey's case said they would present no evidence. He was then cleared of illegally selling Iraq machine tools designed for making arms between September 1988 and March 1989. His company is based in Birmingham in central England. Three executives of the Matrix Churchill Corp., an Iraqi-owned toolmaker based in Coventry, England, were acquitted Monday after former Trade Minister Alan Clark testified that he encouraged the exports. Mr. Bailey was present at a 1988 meeting when Mr. Clark advised the Matrix Churchill executives on ways to get around 1985 government guidelines discouraging arms sales to Iraq. Earlier, London's Financial Times reported that the United States secretly gave immunity to one of the Matrix Churchill executives, Paul Henderson, who was a spy for British intelligence. The newspaper said the CIA, in a report sent to the White House and the State Department on Nov. 6, 1989, identified Matrix Churchill as part of an Iraqi network to procure arms and technology. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM