MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Pinochet received bribes from BAE

United Kingdom arms manufacturer British Aerospace, BAE, paid through front companies over two million US dollars to General Augusto Pinochet, reveals a joint investigation by the British newspaper The Guardian and Chile's La Tercera.

The uncovered documents show that between December 1997 and October 2004 BAE paid 1,998,871 US dollars in 14 payments to Tasker Investments, Cornwall Overseas Corporation and Eastview Finance.

These companies were named in a US Senate report in March this year as conduits for payments to General Pinochet. The last direct payment from BAE is alleged to have been on 30 June 2004, involving 189.940 US dollars.

The Guardian also revealed that, according to official Chilean bank documents, another company was also involved in the transactions, Red Diamond Trading, which was started in 1998 by a BAE affiliate, HQ Marketing Services.

"Red Diamond Trading was used by Marketing Services to make undercover payments to agents in South America involved in the sale of arms to Latinamerican governments", underlined The Guardian.

When asked about the matter, the company said in a statement: "We at BAE Systems have clear and rigorous policies which govern the conduct of our relationships with third parties. We require all our employees to adhere to these policies and comply with the law".

However The Guardian points out that BAE has been accused of alleged corruption and bribes and that the former Chilean dictator also faces similar claims in Chile involving massive purchase of arms and military equipment.

The British Ministry of Defence describes Chile as a "significant market" for the sale of arms, and in the last ten years BAE signed two big contracts with the South American country.

One of them involved the development of a missiles system in 1994 when Pinochet was Commander in Chief of the Army, for which Chile invested 60 million US dollars in a joint company. The project was abandoned in 2003.

The second, according to a confidential document from MOD, is linked to Chilean shipyards under managed by the Chilean Navy. Throughout the nineties Pinochet visited Britain on several occasions as a guest of BAE.

The allegations, according to The Guardian, raise serious questions for BAE as since 2002 it has been illegal for British companies to make corrupt payments to foreign nationals.

BAE is the lynchpin of the UK defence industry - the Department of Trade and Industry holds a golden share in the company to protect the national interest. Last year, the BBC revealed BAE had been running a £60m slush fund to oil the wheels of a massive arms deal with Saudi Arabia. That is currently the subject of an investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.

Earlier this week the Dutch company Rotterdamsche Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) confirmed that in 1998 it paid 1,5 million US dollars to a company represented by a Pinochet aide. The sum followed the purchase by Chile of 202 Leopard tanks from Holland.

The information was published in the Dutch newspaper "De Volkskrant", adding that the payment was done in two installments according to Joep Van Den Nieuwenhuyzen, head of RDM and apparently were deposited in Eastview Finance, in the Virgin Islands which since November 1998 belonged to Pinochet.