Lightfoot records withheld: [1 All-round Country Edition]
Elisabeth Wynhausen, John Stapleton. The Australian [Canberra, A.C.T] 21 Mar 2005: 4.
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Abstract
LIBERAL senator Ross Lightfoot’s companion on the mission to smuggle $US20,000 ($25,200) into Iraq for Woodside Petroleum has refused to produce the records which he says prove it was him, not the West Australian senator, who carried the cash.
Mr [Simko Halmet] has contended that when Woodside decided to make a donation to a hospital in Halabja, he alone was responsible for dealing with the money. The $US20,000 went into his bank account until it was possible to carry it into Iraq, he said, suggesting that Senator Lightfoot’s visit to the area was the first chance to do so.
Full Text
LIBERAL senator Ross Lightfoot’s companion on the mission to smuggle $US20,000 ($25,200) into Iraq for Woodside Petroleum has refused to produce the records which he says prove it was him, not the West Australian senator, who carried the cash.
Simko Halmet, the Australian representative of the Kurdish Regional Government, said if there were an investigation he would show pertinent bank statements and other documents to government officials.
“When the federal police come, I’ll show them,” he told The Australian yesterday.
Senator Lightfoot last week denied he had boasted to two News Limited journalists, including to this newspaper’s Middle East correspondent Nicolas Rothwell, that he acted as a courier, taking part of the donation for a Kurdish hospital into Iraq after sewing it into the lining of his jacket.
But Mr Halmet has insisted that the senator wasn’t involved in the transactions.
Mr Halmet has contended that when Woodside decided to make a donation to a hospital in Halabja, he alone was responsible for dealing with the money. The $US20,000 went into his bank account until it was possible to carry it into Iraq, he said, suggesting that Senator Lightfoot’s visit to the area was the first chance to do so.
He denied he was taking the fall for Senator Lightfoot. “Why should I?” he said.
The Opposition yesterday accused John Howard of refusing to back an inquiry into the matter in order to protect the Government’s Senate majority. Labor’s deputy leader Jenny Macklin called for an inquiry to get to the bottom of the conflicting versions of events.
“John Howard should stop running away from this inquiry and make sure that it is properly investigated,” she told the Nine Network.
Deputy Prime Minister John Anderson said that the Government accepted Senator Lightfoot’s statement on the issue. “I don’t see that you can take it much further at this stage,” Mr Anderson told Channel Seven.
In Sydney yesterday the Prime Minister said he had no further comment on the matter — “because I believe his response to theallegations is credible”.
Mr Halmet has said that he took $US5600, the maximum allowed without declaring it, over the Turkish border into Iraq, borrowing much of the rest from wealthy relatives in the Kurdish part of Iraq, such as his brother-in-law Mohammed Ali Kadr.