Examination of witness (Questions 900
- 919)
TUESDAY 3 NOVEMBER 1998
MR
TIM
SPICER,
OBE
900. Has Mr Buckingham confirmed your view
of this lunchtime occasion or not?
(Mr Spicer) He has confirmed that view to me,
yes.
901. He has confirmed that in fact you handed
over the—
(Mr Spicer) Yes.
902. The other major conflict of evidence
concerns obviously this meeting on the 19 January. I have been
sitting here listening to you and we would like to resolve the
conflict of evidence on a number of these key moments in which
you were involved and the company was involved either with officials
or Mr Penfold. How do we get out of this conundrum? How do we
get out of this confusion if not conflict of evidence relating
to the 19 January meeting? May I ask you to look at paragraph
6.34 of the Legg Report? This is in a way where Legg cops out
of the key essential issue because the 19 January meeting would
you accept is key to your evidence to this Committee and indeed
as it will be to officials and others?
(Mr Spicer) Yes.
903. Have you any further comment to make
on paragraph 6.34?
(Mr Spicer) The only thing I would say about that
meeting, and in some way it may help the Committee to resolve
this issue, is that I am clear, and I have given my account of
the meeting and no doubt you will have an account from Foreign
Office officials, that there was subsequently a mention in the
Legg Report of the minute written by Mr Andrews in which he makes
no reference to reading out the warning or something that would
appear to be so significant in the meeting that has been made
so much of afterwards, that we were given a line by line red letter
warning. If that was the case why was it not in the minute? Why
did we spend two or three minutes,[8]
or whatever is referred to in the Legg Report, flicking through
the UN document, not the Order in Council? Subsequently, once
Customs had appeared on the scene, why would I then choose to
ring Mr Murray to ask him to ring Customs and Excise to try and
put the brakes on something that I thought was completely unnecessary
and going to prove embarrassing for everybody? Obviously my first
choice was to talk to Mr Penfold. He was not available but we
needed somebody from the Foreign Office whom we believed to be
supportive and fully in the picture to ring Customs and Excise
to say, "Explain to us what is going on", so it was
our view—and that may have been mistaken;[9]
it may be that the Foreign Office held a different view—that
the Foreign Office had not given this warning, had not in any
way indicated that this was unacceptable and therefore they were
the people that we would naturally turn to if we were in difficulties
or in conflict with another Government Department and that is
really the only help that I can give you on the matter.
904. So you certainly reject the sentence
in paragraph 6.34, referring to Mr Murray and Mr Andrews: "We
have found no reason why they should have chosen to give Sandline
encouragement or approval. We do not find that they did so."
(Mr Spicer) I would take issue with that. We subsequently
did an analysis of telephone calls and conversations which I believe
you have as evidence in front of you. Those were submitted to
the Legg Enquiry but I do not think they are reflected in the
final report. I think that whilst I cannot quote you date and
time of telephone calls, they would probably bear out what I have
just said.
905. But you are absolutely clear that at
that meeting you spelt out in a reasonable amount of detail that
this was going to be a supply of military equipment and arms to
President Kabbah?
(Mr Spicer) Not only a supply of military equipment
and arms but an involvement in the campaign to restore President
Kabbah. Why else was there a discussion about a "long drawn
out, bloody campaign"?
906. The only other piece of evidence we
have got as a partial explanation of this is in 6.36, on which
the Legg Report places some weight. It is in a minute, Mr Murray's
version of events recorded later. The question is what weight
would one give to this particular evidence. Legg gives quite a
lot of weight to this piece of information, does he not? It says:
"Mr Murray records that `Mr Spicer asked me if I thought
this [Mr Murray speaking to Customs] would lead Customs to close
the book on the matter. I replied I did not know. It would presumably
depend on whether or not Executive Outcomes had undertaken activities
which went beyond those of which he had informed us'." That
is the defence, is it not, by the Foreign Office, that in fact
the sort of information that you were giving them did not in fact
breach any sanctions but in fact, because of the way you had described
it to them, it did not seem to be the kind of operation that you
now say it was?
(Mr Spicer) I am very clear, as I have said before,
that I could have left Mr Murray and Mr Andrews in no doubt about
the type of operation and the involvement in that operation of
arms and ammunition as well as other military equipment. I am
very clear that I did not use the phrase "non-lethal"
and it was not misleading to them in any way.
Sir Peter Emery
907. If the contract that you had given
to Mr Penfold was with Mr Murray then Mr Murray could have been
in no doubt.
(Mr Spicer) That is correct.
Mr Rowlands
908. I just wonder, and let me just wonder
aloud to you, whether in fact did it not suit all parties that
there was a measure of ambiguity about what was going on?
(Mr Spicer) It certainly did not suit me, with
the benefit of hindsight.
909. No, but at the time. In other words
the pattern that seems to come through to a number of these meetings
is a sort of almost parallel information being provided. Officials
speaking on one line and you speaking on another and almost there
is no connection of the information or there does not appear to
be, as we have just revealed. Did it suit your interest to have
a certain ambivalence at the time as to what exactly you were
going to do in case the Foreign Office tried to pull the plug
on it?
(Mr Spicer) No.
910. You do not think that was an explanation
for the confusion?
(Mr Spicer) I do not think so. I am not contesting
that there is confusion about this. What I am saying is that there
was no intention on my part for anybody to be confused and I find
it hard to believe that there was confusion based on what I said
to Mr Murray, but also the discussions that I believe took place
between President Kabbah and Mr Penfold, my subsequent discussions
with Mr Penfold, my briefing of Mr Penfold after the meeting of
the 19th which would have re-affirmed in considerable detail exactly
what we were going to do because I took him through the Python
concept of operations, and actions by us later. I wanted people
to be in no doubt about what we were doing at all.
911. So therefore at that meeting on the
19th—I am not talking about your meetings and discussions
with Mr Penfold—with the officials, it was not you say in
your interests and you made no attempt to cloud or obscure the
nature of the operation?
(Mr Spicer) That is correct.
Ms Abbott
912. Mr Spicer, I wanted to go back over
the corporate structure of Sandline. You said in response to an
earlier question from my colleague Mr Mackinlay that Sandline
was owned by a group of investors incorporated in a holding company.
(Mr Spicer) Yes.
913. I take it that holding company is Sandline
Holdings in BVI?
(Mr Spicer) No. I think it is called Adson Holdings.[10]
914. Are you able possibly to write to the
Committee about this because I think the ownership structure of
Sandline has some bearing on what we are looking at?
(Mr Spicer) If the Committee feels it is relevant
I am happy to get our commercial consultant, who knows this far
better than I do, to write to the Committee.[11]
915. So could we have a note on the ownership,
what the holding company is called and the names of the investors?
(Mr Spicer) That would be a matter for the investors.
It is not for me to decide, but I am happy to ask that that note
be written.
916. I am grateful. Do you remember the
Papua New Guinea inquiry into Sandline?
(Mr Spicer) Very well.
917. And you remember giving evidence there?
(Mr Spicer) Yes.
918. You remember what you said?
(Mr Spicer) Not in its entirety.
919. Let me remind you. They asked you about
Sandline. They asked you: Do you have a title name in the company?
and you said yes. Your answer was: "I suppose I am a director.
It is not really a formalised name." And then they asked
you: "And who else holds prominent positions in the company?"
and you said, "There are two others. The Chairman is Mr Tony
Buckingham and the Finance Director is Mr Michael Grunberg."
That is in complete conflict with what you told colleagues earlier
when you said that Mr Buckingham had no formal business relationship
with Sandline.
(Mr Spicer) I think I would answer your question
by saying that at the time I gave that evidence —as I have
said to the Committee this morning, I am not an expert on this
corporate structure business. I am the operations man.
8 Note by Witness: The Legg Report says "about
3 minutes" (see paragraph 6.30). Back
9
Note by Witness: Even if I was mistaken in my belief (leading
me to telephone Mr Murray after the Customs investigation commenced
on 27 March 1998), I was not then disabused of that mistaken belief,
as is evidenced by the fact that I telephoned Mr Murray again
after HM Customs and Excise had executed search warrants on 3
April 1998. Please see the analysis of the telephone calls set
out in SJ Berwin & Co's letters to Sir Thomas Legg, dated
6 and 15 July 1998, in particular, in this regard, the conclusions
on pages 4 and 5 of the letter of 15 July. Back
10
See Memorandum, p. 41. Back
11
See Memorandum, p. 41. Back
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