The arms to Sierra Leone affair descended into farce yesterday when the head of the civil service at the Foreign Office denied that a minister had been briefed about arms shipments to Sierra Leone before a Commons debate in March. Sir John Kerr had earlier told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that the Foreign Office Minister, Mr Tony Lloyd, had been briefed before the debate.
With the opposition members demanding a full statement to the Commons "which will put paid to the confusion", Sir John performed a dramatic U-turn on the evidence he had presented to the Foreign Affairs Committee. After appearing before the committee in the morning, Sir John said later that he had "checked" his memory of a briefing pack prepared for Mr Lloyd before the debate and realised that it had not contained a reference to arms shipments.
Also, it did not refer to a request by the Foreign Office that was sent to Customs and Excise asking it to investigate the allegations of sanctions-busting by the military consultants, Sandline International. He conceded that the briefing did mention reports of a possible deal between Sandline and pro-government forces in Sierra Leone intent on overthrowing the military junta. Sir John's original evidence had contrasted markedly with Mr Lloyd's version of events. Mr Lloyd had told the Commons on March 12th that reports claiming Britain's High Commissioner to Sierra Leone, Mr Peter Penfold, had conspired with "hired killers" to remove the military junta were "ill-informed and scurrilous". Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Mr Menzies Campbell, said the affair was taking on an "Alice in Wonderland dimension".
During a 90-minute interrogation by the committee, Sir John also disclosed that Sandline boss - ex-Guards officer Lieut-Col Tim Spicer - had regularly briefed officials about the situation in Sierra Leone and had even visited the Foreign Office.
He insisted that until last month, the matter had been handled by junior officials in the Foreign Office, who referred claims that Sandline had breached the UN arms embargo to Customs.
It was only after Sandline started alleging it had supplied 30 tonnes of arms to forces loyal to deposed President Kabbah with government approval that senior officials and ministers had become involved.
Sir John's memory lapse is the second time that the Foreign Office has admitted making mistakes in its evidence to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Mr Lloyd had said that the first time he was aware of the allegations against Sandline International was at the end of May. But last week he was forced to admit he had made a mistake after the Foreign Secretary, Mr Robin Cooke, revealed that Mr Lloyd had seen papers related to the investigation in mid-April.