MoD's £8m payments 'to maintain Saudi deal'

The Ministry of Defence paid millions of pounds to a company later alleged to have been a conduit for secret payments to high-ranking Saudi Arabian officials including a member of the Saudi royal family.

- David Pegg, Rob Evans

The MoD payments, worth £8m, were made under a contract codenamed Project Arrow that ran until at least 2017, according to documents that surfaced in a criminal trial.

The contract was signed amid a scramble by MoD officials to keep on track a £1.6bn defence deal for the supply of military communications equipment to the Saudis.

That deal, called Sangcom, was at the time under investigation by the anti-corruption agency, the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), which was investigating payments to a Saudi prince, Miteb bin Abdullah, in an earlier period between 2007 and 2010.

It was Prince Miteb who, in the midst of the SFO investigation in 2014, directed the 14 MOD to sign the £8m Project Arrow contract with a Saudi company, Arab Builders for Telecommunications and Security Services (ABTSS), a court heard.

Despite concerns among senior defence officials about the relationship between ABTSS and Miteb, the MoD signed the contract in August 2014.

The defence secretary at the time the MoD was considering whether to make payments to ABTSS was Philip Hammond, who later became chancellor under Theresa May.

Hammond was briefed shortly before a meeting with Miteb, the then head of the Saudi Arabian national guard (Sang). The details of the briefing are unclear.

Three years later, in 2017, Miteb was one of the highest-profile Saudis detained in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Riyadh during Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's "anti-corruption" purge. He was later released after reportedly agreeing to a $1bn (£780m) settlement, though it is not known precisely what he was accused of.

Documents revealing the MoD contract with ABTSS surfaced during the trial of the business executives Jeffrey Cook and John Mason. Both were accused by the SFO of paying bribes to officials, including Miteb, as part of the Sangcom deal during an earlier period, between 2007 and 2010.