Asil Nadir ‘stitched up’ Navigation
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The Media
Asil Nadir departed the UK when the Serious Fraud Office introduced a false allegation into proceedings at his original trial and asserted that Nadir had bribed the judge. It later transpired the SFO had panicked when the judge began to discard many of their spurious charges. As the SFO feared disaster, they stopped the trial by presenting to the judge a false instrument acquired from a career villain with an extensive criminal history. It was a stitch up, of course Nadir fled, but the media portrayed his hasty exit as a sign of his guilt.
Following Nadir’s second trial
in 2012, while the rest of media denounced him, prepared to examine the facts
and one journalist, Andrew Rosthorn, offered the public a different view and
published Project Babylon and the still smoking Iraqi supergun in Tribune
magazine. The story had such a powerful impact on the establishment that within
24-hours, Asil Nadir was hastily transferred from HMP Belmarsh a
maximum-security prison in south-east London, where he was held as a dangerous
Category ‘A’ inmate and shipped to HMP Highpoint near Newmarket where he was
labelled as a harmless Category ‘C’ prisoner.
Andrew Rosthorn is a
veteran news reporter based in Lancashire. After reporting The Irish troubles
in the early seventies for the Daily Mail, he worked on hard news for the Daily
Mirror, Sunday Mirror, The Independent and The Independent on Sunday. He has
led radio and television investigations into the fate of Hitler's deputy Rudolf
Hess, CIA sabotage of Leyland exports to Cuba, corruption in ammunition supply
at the Ministry of Defence, breaking UN sanctions in Serbia for Marks and
Spencer, the Owen Oyston Affair and Royal Navy espionage in Japan Project Babylon and the still smoking gun
Project Babylon and the still smoking gun
by Andrew Rosthorn
‘Documents
examined during the Old Bailey trial of the tycoon Asil Nadir suggest the CIA
revealed to the Israeli government that British agents murdered the designer of
Saddam Hussein’s supergun.’
An “un-redacted” version of a CIA intelligence report on
the 1990 shooting of Canadian engineer Gerald Bull was given to Nadir’s defence
team, but excluded from his trial.
Nadir
prison move after CIA research paper
reveals
Polly Peck links to Saddam supergun
By
Andrew Rosthorn
‘Twenty-four hours after Tribune published the cover of a ‘CIA research
paper’ revealing that British spooks used one of Asil Nadir’s firms to smuggle
a test consignment of explosives to Saddam Hussein, the Home Office transferred
the jailed Turkish Cypriot tycoon from category A Belmarsh to category C
Highpoint Prison, near Newmarket.’The Supergun plot, murders and a report we can't ignore
The Supergun plot, murders and a report we can't ignore
by Chris Blackhurst
As the Independent newspaper
picked up the Tribune articles, former editor Chris Blackhurst published
another article suggesting that there should be a public enquiry. When the
story first appeared, the newspaper provided an electronic form, which allowed
readers to vote whether or not they agreed with him that there should be an
enquiry, in the event readers voted overwhelmingly in favour of a public
inquiry.
‘Why was the document helpful to Nadir?
Because elsewhere it describes how his Unipac packaging subsidiary was involved
in the transport of rocket propellant. The explosive was disguised as
chocolate, and manufactured by the British fireworks firm Astra. It was
destined for use in the massive Iraqi artillery piece known as the Supergun.
Gerald James, the former head of Astra, has always maintained that his company
was unknowingly used by Kock to supply explosives to the Iraqis.’ Click here for the full story.
Crates of long-lost evidence found at SFO
'cast doubt on Nadir conviction'
By Sean O'Neill
Shortly after Asil Nadir’s 2012 trial, Sean O’Neill of The
Times newspaper revealed that the Serious Fraud Office had lost several crates
of evidence relating to the Nadir case. Since The Times charge for their
stories, I have copied the full article below.
‘The Serious Fraud Office faced fresh woes over the Asil
Nadir case last night after three long-lost crates of evidence were found at
its offices. The discovery led to questions about the safety of Nadir’s
conviction last year for stealing £28.5 million from his Polly Peck business
empire in the 1980s.
The material relates to one of the murkiest episodes in
modern legal history — an alleged plot by Nadir to bribe the judge at his
original trial in 1993. The claims were later revealed to be a fabrication by
Michael Francis, a police informant, and Mr Justice Tucker received an apology
from the SFO for being made the subject of “spurious and groundless
allegations”.
The boxes contain documents and recordings of interviews
from a police investigation into the origins of the bribery allegation. The
evidence went undiscovered before Nadir’s trial despite an extensive trawl for
relevant files when the tycoon returned to Britain in 2010 after 17 years
self-imposed exile in North Cyprus.
A source said that when the SFO moved offices last
November the material was found on shelves behind a desk once used by a
policeman attached to the unit.
The SFO blamed human error, but non-disclosure of evidence
is a serious issue that has led to the collapse of trials and quashing of
convictions. It also argued that the documents were irrelevant to the fraud
case yet indicated that it wanted to keep them secret. It intends to apply for
public interest immunity (PII) certificates, which were used during last year’s
trial to prevent documents being disclosed to defence lawyers or the jury on
national security grounds.
Lord Maginnis of Drumglass, who campaigns on the North
Cyprus issue, said the discovery of the boxes reinforced his concerns about the
Nadir case. “The SFO and the courts have obtained dozens of PII certificates to
keep evidence secret which in our so-called information age is extraordinary,”
the former Ulster Unionist MP said.
“The alleged plot to bribe the judge was, in my view, a
set-up. When we consider what we are learning now about policing in that era —
from Hillsborough to the activities of rogue undercover cops — we should also
ask what went on in the Nadir case. This sudden discovery of lost evidence
raises very serious questions about whether Nadir had a fair trial and whether
his conviction should stand.”
The boxes create a legal headache for all sides. The SFO
may not be able to withhold the documents because PII certificates cannot be
obtained where no proceedings are active.
Nadir is not appealing against his conviction but has
applied to serve his ten-year sentence in Turkey, where his wife Nur, 29, is
thought to be living. He has cleared an obstacle to that transfer by finding £5
million that the courts ordered him to pay in compensation to former investors.
The alleged bribery plot is at the centre of claims that
Nadir, a prominent donor to the Conservative Party in the 1980s, was the target
of a “dirty tricks” campaign.
The SFO declined to comment.’
Public Interest Immunity Certificates
‘Iron Fist of Political Control’
Secret Justice: Public Interest Immunity Certificates (PIICs)
and their use in the Asil Nadir Trials. Martin
Tancock
claims that the two trials of Asil Nadir were staged by
civil servants in the East European tradition:
“With the rise of Thatcher and the great show trials of
the early nineties: Euromac, Ordtec, Matrix Churchill, Elizabeth Forsyth, Asil
Nadir; the iron fist of political control has been worthy of anything that has
come out of Eastern Europe.”
“In those trials evidence was not properly investigated,
it was suppressed, it was manufactured and PII was imposed. Witnesses were not
called or barred from attending the trial; allegations of corruption were made
without evidence; reporting restrictions were imposed and evidence was heard in
secret. Juries were misdirected.”
Wikipedia defines show trial, as a pejorative
description of a type of highly public trial in which there is a strong
connotation that the judicial authorities have already determined the guilt of
the defendant. The actual trial has as its only goal to present the accusation
and the verdict to the public as an impressive example and as a warning to
other would-be dissidents or transgressors. Show trials tend to be retributive
rather than correctional justice and also conducted for propagandistic
purposes. The term was first recorded in the 1930s.
Blog inspired by the memory of my late parents - both murdered by Maggie Thatcher
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