Fox breached ministerial code but did not gain financially, says official report

The former defence secretary Liam Fox will be found on Tuesday to have breached the ministerial code in what is expected to be a brief but damning report into his improper links with his close friend and adviser Adam Werritty.

But the report will not find that Fox benefited financially from Werritty's actions.

Fox resigned on Friday, knowing the impending report from the cabinet secretary, Sir Gus O'Donnell, and revelations about Werritty's funding made it impossible for him to cling to office.

The funding was arranged by Fox and some of the donors have expressed anger at the way in which the money was used. The report prepared by O'Donnell and handed to David Cameron on Monday, will be published on Tuesday morning.

It is intended to be a bare statement of facts and will not offer any policy recommendations, such as further revisions to the ministerial code.

It is likely to question whether Fox did enough to distance himself from Werritty after he was warned by the permanent secretary, Ursula Brennan, that it was wrong for Werritty to distribute business cards claiming to be an adviser to Fox.

The document may also suggest it was wrong to have allowed Werritty to be presented as a government official at some events the two attended.

The fact that the report finds Fox did not gain financially from his promotion of Werritty will come as a relief to the former minister and make it more likely he can return to government.

But the report will not touch on whether Fox misled any donors as to why they were to fund Werritty, and whether the lobbyist's jet-set lifestyle was endorsed by the donors.

Werritty is still subject to a separate police inquiry. Ministers were still pondering whether to make an oral Commons statement on the issue, but know they are likely to be forced to make a statement by the Speaker if they fail to volunteer one.

It is expected that Fox will make a personal statement expressing his regret at the way in which he remained too close to Werritty in office.Werritty met Fox more than 20 times in the Ministry of Defence and accompanied him abroad on 18 occasions, predominantly to attend social events.

No 10 stressed it would press ahead with a statutory code for lobbyists in the next parliamentary session, but privately ministers feel the connection between Fox's behaviour and the need for a lobbyist register is tenuous.

Ministers have refused to set out the terms of reference of the O'Donnell inquiry, simply saying it is to examine all the issues the public want answered.

But in advance of publication, Labour was claiming the report would ignore many of the questions the public expect to be answered, including the sources of Werritty's funding. The shadow defence secretary, Jim Murphy, said: "Now it seems all we are being offered is a selective internal report.

"David Cameron must provide full transparency over all of Liam Fox and Adam Werritty's activities.

"We need to know the full extent of Dr Fox's use of Adam Werritty as an 'unofficial adviser', how Mr Werritty was funded, and all his links and meetings with government.

"Unless this report examines what all ministers knew and when, including the prime minister; the activities of Atlantic Bridge and all Mr Werritty's organisations; all overseas visits Mr Werritty was part of; and the legality of donations Dr Fox was part of soliciting, it will be deemed inadequate. People must be able to judge for themselves how this has been allowed to happen on David Cameron's watch." Labour is also to ask Sir Philip Mawer, the official adviser on ministerial interests, whether he is happy about his exclusion from the controversy.

The Pentagon confirmed that Fox introduced Werritty to Robert Gates, the US defence secretary, during a meeting there in March 2010, just before the general election. The meeting was described as a "courtesy call".

In July 2010 Werritty and Fox had dinner with the US general now commanding the war in Afghanistan.

The pair met General John Allen, who was deputy commander of US Central Command and now leads the International Security Assistance Force, in Tampa, Florida.

Werritty and Fox went back to Tampa, the HQ of CentCom, which runs US operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, in May this year. The MoD refused to describe the nature of the "official meetings" Fox held.

U.S. launches campaign to track down Libyan missiles

TRIPOLI — The United States is planning to dispatch dozens of former military personnel to Libya to help track down and destroy surface-to-air missiles from Moammar Gaddafi’s stockpiles that U.S. officials worry could be used by terrorists to take down passenger jets.

The weapons experts are part of a rapidly expanding $30 million program to secure Libya’s conventional weapons in the wake of the most violent conflict to occur in the Arab Spring, according to State Department officials who provided new details of the effort.
Fourteen contractors with military backgrounds have been sent to help Libyan officials, and the U.S. government is looking at sending dozens more. Thousands of pamphlets in Arabic, English and French will be delivered to neighboring countries so border guards can recognize the heat-seeking missiles, the officials said. It could grow to become one of the three biggest U.S. weapons-retrieval program in the world, along with those in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“We have not seen any .?.?. attacks with loose missiles coming out of Libya yet,” said Andrew Shapiro, assistant secretary of state for political-military affairs. But, he added, “We’re working as assiduously as we can to address the threat. It only takes one to make a real difference.”

Gaddafi was one of the world’s top purchasers of the shoulder-fired missiles, buying about 20,000 in the 1970s and 1980s, according to U.S. estimates. While the weapons are of limited effectiveness against modern military aircraft, the still pose a threat to commercial passenger planes.

Thousands of the missiles were destroyed in NATO bomb attacks on arms depots during the war and hundreds have been recovered by the new government. But an unknown number were carted off by Libyan rebel groups and civilians who swarmed into unguarded storage areas after Gaddafi’s forces were defeated.

Already, several missiles have been intercepted on the desert road from Libya to Egypt, according to Egyptian officials. Tunisia’s prime minister, Beji Caid Essebsi, said in a recent interview he was so worried about smuggled Libyan weapons that he planned to ask Washington to provide helicopters for border surveillance.

Unlike in Iraq and Afghanistan, the U.S. military has no troops in Libya who can secure the weapons. President Obama has refused to deploy U.S. military forces to Libya to avoid raising hackles both in the Middle East and in the U.S. Congress. Some lawmakers — notably House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) — have called for using U.S. soldiers to secure the shoulder-fired missiles and Libya’s chemical weapons stocks.

But that task is in the hands of an overstretched Libyan transitional government, which has shown willingness but limited capacity.

“We need help,” Atia al-Mansouri, a military consultant to the governing Transitional National Council, said Thursday. Various rebel groups had hauled away the weapons, he said, “and they are a little more powerful than the army.”

Shoulder-fired missiles have emerged as a global threat, with more than 40 civilian aircraft hit by the weapons since the 1970s. After al-Qaeda-affiliated terrorists tried to shoot down an airliner in Mombasa, Kenya, in 2002, the U.S. government stepped up its efforts to track and dismantle the missiles, known technically as MANPADS (Man-Portable Air Defense Systems).

Sobbing wife who shot 11 times (but was found not guilty of murder) turns herself in to court on weapons charges

The wife who killed her husband by shooting him in cold blood was seen sobbing and popping pills as she turned herself into authorities Wednesday.
Though she was found not guilty of the murder of her husband Raymond after claiming self defence, Barbara Sheehan was charged with the unlawful possession of a weapon.
The charge is the far lesser of the two she faced after she admitted to killing her husband Raymond, though she said it was in self defence. 
Sheehan turned herself into a court in Queens, New York, this afternoon, though she did not seem quite at ease as she was photographed sobbing popping some pills on her way into the building.
Her lawyer Michael Dowd said that the pills were prescribed to the school secretary to help her bad heart and anxiety.
'Barbara has high blood pressure and anxiety disorder. Health issues from the 17 years and the three years awaiting for this trial to end,' Mr Dowd said. 'We have ordered to have medical attention for her immediately.'
The storied trial of Sheehan grabbed headlines because of the gory and dramatic nature of the case, where she and her two grown children painted her husband Raymond as an aggressive abuser and she as the victim.
She was acquitted of Raymond's murder, though now, if minimum sentencing requirements for the weapons charge are followed, she will face a minimum of two and a half years in prison.
Her legal team is hoping for an extension to meet her $1million bail payment, and are also looking into appeal procedures for the weapons charge.
Wednesday's proceedings were some of the final steps to closing a long case.
Sheehan says she shot her 49-year-old husband of 24 years, Raymond, 11 times after suffering decades of physical and verbal abuse.
He allegedly pointed a 9mm Glock at her and she shot him with a .38-calibre revolver.
She says he threatened to kill her and he meant it. But prosecutors said she was not abused and was angry over her husband's infidelities.
In the end, she was acquitted of the murder charges. At that time, her supporters cheered as the verdict was read, with many dressed in purple to support domestic violence victims. But Sheehan will be jailed for between two and a half to 15 years for the weapon charge.
Authorities say she fired 11 times while her husband, a former New York City police sergeant, was shaving in the bathroom.
Court documents said Sheehan told police the night of the incident: ‘I shot him! I shot him! I think he's dead. He's in the bathroom.’
Legal experts said the case is a test of the battered-woman defence.
This is when the history of abuse is explored to explain a woman's mental state at the time she is accused of committing a crime.
The issue is self-defence, which under New York state law justifies the use of lethal force in response to an immediate threat to life.
Under the battered-woman defence, lethal force can sometimes be justified even if the threat may not appear immediate.
Sheehan testified her husband smashed her head against a cinder-block wall when they were on holiday in 2007, reported the New York Times.
On the day of the killing in February 2008 he allegedly threw boiling pasta sauce at her and punched her in the face.
‘She acted out of defence,’ her daughter Jennifer Joyce said. ‘There were no other options. He was pointing a gun to her head.’
Prosecutors said there were other reasons Sheehan killed her husband. She was allegedly furious over his infidelity and sexual habits such as wearing nappies and women's clothes.
They also said she would benefit from life insurance policies - but Sheehan's son Ray disputed this.
‘I don't think people understand how bad it was at home,’ he said.
‘I don't think they understand how my father threatened to kill us and how if we told anybody about what he was doing that he'd kill us too.