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(Continued from overleaf)
5 December 1994: Mohamed 'Al' Fayed's solicitors write to the chairman of the Members' Interests Committee alleging
for the very first time that a) Neil Hamilton had received cash from Mohamed Fayed himself, and b) that there were
no witnesses to these alleged transactions.
Acting on information supplied by their client, Fayed's solicitors D J Freeman listed twelve dates between 2 June 1986 and 21 November 1989, on eight of which Fayed now claimed he gave Neil Hamilton £2,500 in £50 note denominations (i.e. £20,000). On the remaining four occasions Fayed alleged that he passed over Harrods gift vouchers to a total of £8,000 (i.e. not £15,000 as alleged in the News of the World of 23 October or £6,000 as alleged in his official complaint to the Members' Interests Committee on 27 October). Fayed stated that all these alleged transactions took place during private meetings behind closed doors and without anyone else present.
The dates of the meetings were drawn from Fayed's office appointment diary. Hamilton subsequently
acknowledged that he had many meetings with Fayed (though he denied and subsequently disproved attending meetings on certain of the dates), and Hamilton volunteered that he probably had more meetings
than the twelve listed by Fayed's solicitors. Hamilton claimed that during this period he had sympathised with Fayed's battle to retain Harrods against moves to unseat him by Tiny Rowland, and, as a consequence, had developed a friendship with the Egyptian, whom he described as a charming and highly amusing person.
Regardless, Fayed offered no evidence to support these new allegations, such as records of gift voucher numbers, or tape-recordings of their meetings -- despite Fayed's documented bent for bugging and archiving tapes of private meetings to facilitate future blackmail attempts. Nor did Fayed suggest that his Park Lane office staff or his Harrods office staff might be able to corroborate either the new cash allegations or the gift voucher allegations -- despite having suggested in his previous 'gift voucher' complaint of 27 October that his Harrods office staff might be able to corroborate those allegations.
No announcement was made of the new allegations. Accordingly they went unreported.
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31 December 1994: The Guardian carries a mammoth 10,000-word "Review of the Year", penned by diarist Alan Rusbridger, containing no mention of the lobbyist Ian Greer.
Despite the furore caused by
The Guardian's 'cash for questions' story, Rusbridger penned less than eighty words on the matter. Rusbridger made no mention of the lobbyist Ian Greer, though only two months earlier
The Guardian had constantly alleged that Greer had been "at the centre" of
The Guardian's story.
In his article Rusbridger also uses omission and juxtaposition to create the
false impression that The Guardian's story had been vindicated by Tim Smith's resignation, and goes on to imply that Neil Hamilton had not admitted his visit to the Paris Ritz
but that he had "clung onto office" until this was "revealed". In fact, the information about the Ritz
had appeared in The Guardian's original article of 20 October and Prime Minister John Major did not pressurise Hamilton into resigning until 25 October.
Rusbridger wrote:
"[in October] The Guardian published claims that two Conservative ministers had accepted cash in exchange for
asking questions on behalf of Mohammed Al-Fayed, the owner of Harrods. One of them, Tim Smith, admitted the
charge and resigned. The other, Neil Hamilton, denied it and clung on in office until it was revealed that he had
accepted lavish hospitality from Mr Fayed in the form of a weekend at the Ritz in Paris. He resigned, vowing to clear
his name.
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