Corruption in arms trade/ The British arms trade to Saudi Arabia

...Saudi Arabia is the biggest military spender in the Middle East apart from Israel. It has hundreds of top of the range aircraft and over a thousand hi-tech tanks more or less rotting away in the desert, even though the region is facing a fundamental threat to its stability. So why the massive spending on arms?

It makes a little more sense when you follow the money. The House of Saud's Prince Turki bin Nasser is reported to have benefited from most of a £60 million slush fund that BAE Systems set up to ease the Al-Yamamah arms deal. This remains the largest export deal in British history, instigated by Margaret Thatcher and reportedly worth £40 billion by 2005, when the Guardian exposed it as hideously corrupt.

Senior members of the Saudi monarchy were implicated, including Prince Bandar Bin Sultan, the head of the National Security Council. It is alleged that he took £1 billion in secret payments from BAE to ensure that it won the contract.

From Westminster to Riyadh, British arms deals stink of corruption