Passport not linked to Hinduja's donation: Hammond

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, FEB. 25. The official inquiry into the Hindujas' passport affair is reported to have concluded that there is no evidence to link the grant of British citizenship to Mr. Srichand Hinduja in 1999, with his family's one million pound donation to the Millennium Dome. It is also said to have found nothing unusual in the speed with which his application was approved. But it has not fully cleared Mr. Peter Mandelson, Cabinet Minister, who was forced to resign for ``misleading'' the Government about a telephone call he made to then Home Office Minister, Mr. Mike O'Brien, on behalf of Mr. Hinduja.

Critics called it a whitewash job saying Sir Anthony Hammond, QC, who conducted the inquiry, was a former Home Office employee and in clearing it of any wrongdoing, he seemed to have been influenced by his loyalty to his old department. It was dismissed as an ``old boys' network'' operation whose credibility was always in doubt.

The inquiry, whose findings found their way to the Sunday papers today, upheld the charge against Mr. Mandelson that he gave conflicting versions of his call to Mr. O'Brien - first saying he did not speak to him personally and that the call was made by his staff, and then under pressure admitting that he did have a ``fleeting two minute'' conversation with Mr. O'Brien only to return to his original version that he never made the call.

Mr. Mandelson's contradictory statements have been at the heart of the controversy leading to suggestions that he tried to ``lie'' about his role in pushing Mr. Hinduja's application in return for the Hindujas' donation to the cash-strapped Dome, Mr. Mandelson's baby at that time. The sequence of events appeared to bear out the allegation.

Within months of the offer of donation in the spring of 1998, Mr. Mandelson was on the phone to the Home Office inquiring about Mr. Hinduja's application and six months after the donation was made Mr. Hinduja applied for a passport and got it in a record short time. This was his second attempt, having been turned down in 1990, and his ``desperation'' in becoming a British citizen was said to be linked to fears that the Indian Government might seek his extradition in connection with the Bofors kickbacks investigations.

Sir Anthony Hammond's brief was to establish if the Home Office bent rules to clear Mr. Hinduja's passport application following Mr. Mandelson's intervention but even before the inquiry began, the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair, pre-empted it saying that on the strength of papers he had seen there seemed to be no evidence of wrongdoing. He said this while defending another Minister, Mr. Keith Vaz, also said to have lobbied for Mr. Hinduja.

What the inquiry says about Mr. Vaz, under pressure to resign, is not known. Thanks to the compulsions of domestic politics, the focus of the inquiry shifted to Mr. Mandelson's conduct and his bid to clear his name. The report criticises Mr. Blair's official spokesman, Mr. Alistair Campbell, for acting ``too precipitously'' in reacting to Mr. Mandeslon's ``confusing'' statements.

Mr. Mandelson has maintained he has been a victim of a ``kangaroo'' court comprising Mr. Campbell and the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Richard Wilson, among others. His political difficulties with his colleagues in the party and the Cabinet are widely believed to be responsible for his downfall despite his proximity to Mr. Blair. The report, likely to be submitted on March 8, is said to be bad news for Mr. Mandelson who is trying to stage a comeback. The Times said it would be a ``serious blow to Mr. Mandelson's hopes of returning to frontline

politics.''

Meanwhile, observers said that notwithstanding the inquiry's findings the fact of the Hindujas' vast networking stretching right into the heart of the British political establishment would not go away and the question would remain whether the British Government ought to have given citizenship to Mr. Srichand and Mr. Gopichand Hinduja (Mr. Gopichand got it in 1997) at a time when they were under investigation in their own country in a corruption case.

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Section  : International
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