British investigators visited South Africa last week as part of their probe into allegations that BAE Systems paid bribes to secure contracts under the arms deal, while pressure mounts on the company from law enforcement agencies around the world.
BAE won the tender to supply Hawk trainer aircraft and SAAB Grippen fighters worth R30-billion under the deal.
Police spokesperson Sally de Beer confirmed that a team from the serious fraud office (SFO) had been in the country from June 6 to 11.
An SFO spokesperson also confirmed the visit, but would not identify anyone who had been interviewed. He said only that assistant director Helen Garlick had headed the delegation.
The SFO is conducting a wide-ranging investigation into alleged illegal commissions paid by BAE to middlemen in deals involving South Africa, the Czech Republic and Tanzania, and they have previously raided the United Kingdom home and offices of John Bredenkamp, the company’s Southern Africa agent.
An SFO investigation into much larger kickbacks paid by the British firm to secure the multibillion-pound Al-Yamamah deal with Saudi Arabia was cancelled late last year on the instructions of Tony Blair, who claimed it would damage national security.
Swedish and Swiss agencies are also looking into BAE’s conduct and our sister newspaper, The Guardian, reported on Thursday that the United States’s justice department was 99% likely to launch a criminal inquiry of its own.
Last week’s visit provides the first concrete evidence that a request from the British authorities to the department of justice and consitutional development for “mutual legal assistance” is being complied with. Departmental officials have said previously only that the request was approved and then referred to South African Police Service.
Other law enforcement sources have told the Mail & Guardian previously that the request was only reluctantly and formalistically complied with, and that very little was being done to assist the SFO practically.
Concern about the propriety of the Hawk and Grippen contracts has focused previously on the role of former defence minister Joe Modise, who has since died, his adviser Fana Hlongwane, Bredenkamp and the late Richard Charter, another BAE agent who earned massive commissions on the deal.
BAE Systems has maintained consistently that it did nothing illegal.
Meanwhile, The Guardian’s David Leigh and Rob Evans report that the US is poised to join the international array of investigations into BAE after revelations that kickbacks may have been paid through a US bank.