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CNN's Owen Thomas talks to The Corner House's Nick Hildyard about the controversy over a Saudi corruption investigation
What the judges ruled today was that the decision by the Serious Fraud Office, the SFO to terminate the inquiry was unlawful. So if they want to terminate inquiry they're gonna have to take that decision again, and in the meantime we'll be pushing for them to ask for what they were going to ask for, when they succumbed to the, and surrendered to the threats in Saudi Arabia. Namely, the Swiss bank accounts and other details they were seeking and are about to seek.
But the investigation was stopped.
It was stopped, but it was stopped unlawfully. So if they want to, if they want to stop it again they're gonna have to take that decision again, and it will be much harder after this, this decision after this legal ruling, because the judges have effectively given the Serious Fraud Office the tool, the legal principles which they can now use to resist the threats. The point that the judges were making was that the real threat, was not a threat to lives, British lives on British streets, which is what the government have claimed,because of the threat that Saudi Arabia would terminate some, its er, intelligence, some flow of intelligence from Saudi Arabia. The real threat, the imminent threat was the British legal systems of law, to the rule of law. And unless the SFO director resists that threat, he's in breach of the law. So if he wants to terminate this inquiry, what he's gonna do is he is gotta show that the threat is imminent. Bomb in the, in the suitcase somewhere and that there is nothing else that he can do other than terminate the inquiry.
