TWO ACQUITTED BECAUSE UK GOVERNMENT BACKED SAUDI BRIBES

British government complicity in a Saudi Arabia corruption scandal saw two accused acquitted in London’s Southwark Crown Court on March 6, despite both admitting to paying bribes to secure defence contracts. Jeffrey Cook, managing director of Airbus subsidiary GPT Special Project Management from 2008 to 2013, and John Mason, former accountant for fixer Peter Austin’s Simec group of offshore companies, walked free in a case brought by the Serious Fraud Office (SFO). The SFO would also have prosecuted Austin, but he was too ill to face trial. In 2021, GPT was ...


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