Examination of Witnesses (Questions 1620
- 1639)
TUESDAY 10 NOVEMBER 1998
MS ANN
GRANT and MR
CRAIG MURRAY
1620. And what date was it received by those
people?
(Mr Murray) To my knowledge the same day.
1621. So on 19 January when you had your
meeting with Mr Spicer one of the people in the room knew that
Mr Spicer had signed a contract and yet a minute was written to
the effect that he had not.
(Mr Murray) I am not sure the point is actually
covered in the minute of 19 January. I have no doubt that he said
he had not. If he had already given that information to the Department
that is interesting and something which I would not claim to be
able to explain.[9]
1622. If you say he said there was a prospect
of a contract but the two of you knew that there was, why did
not you challenge him when he kept referring to the prospect of
a contract by saying, "You told an official in this Department
on 5 January that you had signed one"?
(Mr Murray) If I had read the minute of 5 January
I am afraid it was not something which I had recalled or held
to him at the time of the meeting.
1623. Had Mr Andrews read that minute by
the time of the 19 January meeting?
(Mr Murray) I imagine he would.
1624. And he did not raise it either?
(Mr Murray) Neither of us challenged saying we
know that there is already a contract.
1625. Are we to conclude that you did not
know what that earlier minute said or you had forgotten it or
had chosen to ignore it?
(Mr Murray) In my case I either had not read that
minute or I had forgotten it. I am sorry I cannot now tell you
which.
1626. We are in a dilemma, are we not, Mr
Murray? You have earlier on said that other people knew things
and you denied it. It would appear on this occasion when people
are suggesting that you did know something which you subsequently
denied you in fact did know it?
(Mr Murray) At the time I met Spicer on 19 January
I had not retained any information that he had actually got the
contract. That minute to which you refer was actually written
on the first day I ever set foot in the Department. If I was not
at my best in taking in information at that stage I think that
is understandable but you could well have a point. It is perfectly
possible that I had seen that minute and had failed to retain
that information which would be my fault.
1627. You accept it is possible that you
knew something and forgot it and subsequently said you did not
know?
(Mr Murray) I accept that is possible.
1628. I think that is highly significant.
Could I just move on to one other thing. You explained earlier
on this morning that if somebody were to sign a $10 million contract
it would not necessarily mean that arms and ammunition were involved.
You heard Mr Penfold's evidence last week?
(Mr Murray) Yes.
1629. You did. You heard me ask him what
conclusions could be drawn from a $10 million contract and he
said very clearly that he as somebody who was in no way special
found it quite reasonable to assume that arms and ammunition were
involved.
(Mr Murray) Yes I heard that.
1630. Earlier on you said it does not necessarily
follow that arms and ammunition were involved. Will you now accept
that it could well have meant that and that big a sum to a colleague
of yours indicated arms and ammunition?
(Mr Murray) It may have indicated arms and ammunition
to him. If he says that indicated to him arms and ammunition I
am perfectly prepared to accept that. What I am saying is that
the fact of the size of the contract and the fact of the sum did
not indicate to me that it must necessarily include arms and ammunition.
1631. You include the word "necessarily".
That is not the point that I am pursuing. The point that I am
pursuing is whether or not when you heard $10 million it occurred
to you that it might include arms and ammunition.
(Mr Murray) No, I do not believe it did. Spicer
was outlining what was planned and talked in terms of training,
logistics and non-lethal equipment. He appeared to me to be signalling
directly that it did not include arms and ammunition.
1632. But it did not cross your mind therefore
that it was possible?
(Mr Murray) Certainly when he then went on to
ask about night vision equipment it obviously crossed my mind
that might be dual purpose equipment and I had my suspicions about
it.
1633. When you had your suspicions did you
not then say, "Does this include arms and ammunition?"
(Mr Murray) I did not ask him directly if this
contract, this prospective contract included arms.
1634. Why did you not ask him if you had
suspicions?
(Mr Murray) Because he used the phrase "non-lethal"
several times and appeared to me to be deliberately setting out
to answer that question before I asked it.
1635. Despite your suspicions you did not
think it was necessary to get a categorical denial?
(Mr Murray) I did not particularly as I had set
out to him what the legal position would be on arms.
1636. When was your Department first aware
that the Nigerians were planning a counter-coup?
(Mr Murray) We were never aware of when it would
happen and I think I can say that the date took us by surprise
when they attacked on 5 February. That really was a surprise to
us. Spicer had talked of a term of eight weeks for the sort of
training and logistics contract he was hoping to get and I had
presumed that that meant that there would be at least eight weeks
before certainly the Kamajors might be going to launch any attack,
but the idea that Nigerian ECOMOG forces might attack and might
attack reasonably soon was prevalent certainly from the time I
joined the Department. It was one of the worries about how the
position could be regularised in international law to accommodate
both the wishes of ourselves and other western countries and the
aims of ECOWAS. So the possibility of an attack by the ECOMOG
forces was a constant preoccupation from before I joined the Department
but I could not tell you myself precisely where it started. Perhaps
Ann can answer that.
Sir John Stanley
1637. Mr Murray, can I put some questions
to you first and then I have got some for Ms Grant. We have had
a lot of discussion this morning about the meeting on 19 January
but there is one issue where I do find it very difficult to reconcile
two points you have made with equal clarity and firmness as far
as your recollection is concerned. On the one hand you have an
extremely firm recollection that all Mr Spicer told you about
in terms of the content of his agreement with President Kabbah
was that he was going to provide logistic support, non-lethal
equipment, to use your phrase and yet, equally, you are very clear
that you had an extensive discussion about the arms embargo and
potential breaching of the arms embargo and I fail to understand
how those two can be reconciled.
(Mr Murray) Well, they are reconciled by the point
that when he raised the question of arms he raised it ostensibly
as a matter of what would be the position in preventing arms getting
there from a third party who were sending them to the other side
and that was when the relevant parts of the Resolution were read
out and the legal position explained. He then asked about his
supplying or his company supplying night vision equipment and
that was the context in which the United Kingdom situation was
explained.
1638. Did you have any discussions with
Mr Andrews before he produced his minute of that meeting as to
the nature of that minute?
(Mr Murray) I do not believe I did, no.
1639. Can I come to the minute that you
produced on 3 February to Mr Dales and Ms Grant about Sierra Leone
policy. You referred to it earlier and you referred to the fact
that you pointed up to a potential dichotomy in policy towards
Sierra Leone and as you have already made clear this morning you
set out in the opening paragraph of your minute what you understood
to be the British Government's policy to be. And in the course
of that paragraph you say that the official policy could embrace
a limited necessary use of force or the threat of force, did you
not?
(Mr Murray) I did but that is prefaced in the
same sentence by "under cover of a UN Security Council Resolution,
monitored and assisted by UN advisers/observers", so under
those conditions that could be the case.
9 Note by Witness: In fact Mr Everard wrote
two separate minutes of 5 January about Sandline, one to
Ms Grant and one to Mr Andrews. The Committee has copies of both.
As my memorandum submitted to the Committee states, Mr Everard
had told me of the minute to Ms Grant and I therefore asked for
and read it before the meeting of 19 January. I was not aware
of the second minute and had not read it before the meeting of
19 January. Neither minute was addressed or copied to me. I can
therefore confirm to the Committee that I was not aware on 19
January, nor had I then seen, that Spicer had earlier told Mr
Everard a contract had been concluded. In Mr Everard's minute
to Mr Andrews of 5 January it is interesting that Mr Spicer told
Mr Everard his contract included medical and communications equipment
"and nothing higher profile". This appears to be further
evidence that Sandline hid the arms component from officials in
Africa Department (Equatorial). Back
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