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(Continued from overleaf)
The events listed in Part Five show:
1:
The Guardian reports the collapse of Neil
Hamilton's & lobbyist Ian Greer's libel actions on 30 September 1996 with
108 articles implying that its original story — alleging that Ian Greer
had bribed MPs Hamilton and Smith — had
been vindicated. One of the
Guardian’s principal articles focuses on the lobbyist's supposed "web of
corruption" among the Conservative Party.
Most
significantly The Guardian mentions only fleetingly the three employees of
Mohamed 'Al' Fayed, who emerged just three days before the trial testifying to a
new allegation that they had processed cash bribes for the lobbyist and the MP.
2:
Three months later in January 1997 the
Parliamentary inquiry requested by Neil Hamilton eventually gets under way when
The Guardian's solicitor Geraldine Proudler finally submits the paper's
complaint to the Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Sir Gordon Downey.
The Guardian’s complaint contains an
explanation as to how it had been discovered so late in the day that three of
Mohamed Al Fayed's employees had processed cash bribes to the lobbyist and the
MP. For the first time The Guardian offers the explanation that it was
Fayed's American lawyer, Doug Marvin, who had discovered the three employees'
roles when he happened to be in London on another matter concerning Harrods.
Most
significantly, Doug Marvin's supposed crucial role isn’t mentioned in any of
The Guardian’s 108 articles that followed the collapse of Hamilton’s &
Greer's libel actions, despite The Guardian's claim on its website that these
108 articles told the "whole story" of how the 'cash for questions'
affair "unfolded".
3:
In January 1997 The Guardian also publishes its
book on the 'cash for questions' affair entitled "Sleaze: the
corruption of Parliament". This also explains that Doug Marvin was
responsible for the discovery of the three employees' roles. However, the
version in "Sleaze" is entirely different to the version described in
Doug Marvin’s witness statement supplied to Downey’s Inquiry by The
Guardian's solicitor Geraldine Proudler.
4:
During the course of the inquiry The Guardian
finally alleges explicitly that commission payments, which the lobbyist Ian
Greer gave to MPs for introducing clients, were actually disguised bribes to
reward MPs to do his clients' bidding in Parliament.
5:
In order to counter the claim by Neil Hamilton
and Ian Greer that the paper's 'cash for questions' article had been based on
allegations that Fayed had made out of spite following his failure to coerce
Prime Minister John Major into granting him a British passport, The Guardian
submits fabricated documents to the inquiry to create the false impression that
the paper's investigations of July 1993 into Ian Greer Associates had also
concerned allegations that Fayed had paid the two MPs directly himself.
6:
Sir Gordon Downey rejects all of The Guardian's
allegations that the lobbyist Ian Greer's introductory commission payments were
disguised bribes to MPs.
However, and
bizarrely, Downey finds in favour of the last-minute allegations —
that three Fayed office staff had processed cash bribes to Neil Hamilton — despite rejecting their
exactly similar allegations against the lobbyist Ian Greer.
7:
Though Downey rejects every corruption allegation
in the Guardian's original story and clears Ian Greer of bribing Tory MPs Smith
and Hamilton, The Guardian dishonestly reports the publication of Sir Gordon's
findings as being a complete vindication of its original story accusing Ian
Greer of bribing the two MPs.
8:
No British news organisation challenges The
Guardian over its false representation of Downey's findings.
Instead the British press reports Downey’s ‘verdict’ uncritically
without mentioning that he had dismissed all of The Guardian's original
allegations accusing the lobbyist Ian Greer.
Part Five also
shows:
9:
The chronology of events regarding Neil
Hamilton's subsequent legal battle to sue Fayed for libel.
10:
The British news media's censorship of the two
freelance journalists' investigation supporting Neil Hamilton’s claims of
innocence and accusing The Guardian of a cover-up in cahoots with its lawyers,
Mohamed Fayed, and Fayed's office staff.
11:
How Neil Hamilton loses his new libel action
against Fayed after confidential legal papers, containing draft
cross-examination questions, were stolen from the chambers of Hamilton's
barristers and sold to Fayed for £10,000 with the close involvement of The
Guardian.
12:
The events surrounding Neil Hamilton's subsequent
appeal one year later, which fails, and the British media's censorship of the
fact that The Guardian had been involved in the theft and sale of the legal
papers.
13:
How, following the collapse of Hamilton's
subsequent appeal, top British news agency The Press Association supplies
Britain's news media with a Guardian-based chronology of events of the whole
'cash for questions' affair, which fails to mention the lobbyist Ian Greer, who
for years had been the focus of The Guardian's ‘cash for questions’
allegations.
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