Britain came 'within hours' of cancelling Saudi arms exports

Documents disclosed as part of a High Court challenge against the arms sales reveal that former Business Secretary Sajid Javid considered suspending the controversial exports.

MENA

2 min read

The New Arab

13 February, 2017

The Campaign Against Arms accuses the UK government of unlawfully continuing the exports [Getty]

British government ministers reportedly came within hours of suspending arms sales to Saudi Arabia, official documents have shown.

The revelation comes as part of an ongoing legal challenge by the Campaign Against Arms Trade [CAAT] against the UK government, in an attempt to cease the licensing of arms to the oil-rich kingdom.

According to The Observer, former UK Business Secretary Sajid Javid threatened to halt the controversial exports by the end of the day on February 12 last year.

This was documented in evidence presented to the High Court in London, which showed that Javid wanted the agreement of both former Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond and Defence Secretary Michael Fallon on continuing the exports.

An official briefing document written by a Ministry of Defence official for Fallon said: "The Business Secretary has indicated he will suspend exports if he does not have the cross-government agreement by the end of [the day]".

Another part of the document states that the then Business Secretary was "considering suspending all export licences related to the campaign in Yemen. However, in the result of an unfavourable judgement in a judicial review it is not clear which export licences would be suspended".

CAAT accuses the UK government of unlawfully failing to suspend arms sales to Riyadh despite the kingdom's "repeated and serious breaches" of international humanitarian law.

The UK government, however, has long maintained that there is no "clear risk" that UK-licensed weapons might be used to commit a serious violations of humanitarian law.

On the hearing's first day on Monday, the High Court heard that ministers ignored warnings from a top civil servant over the arms exports.

Edward Bell, head of the government's Export Control Organisation (ECO), said that suspending the exports would have been "prudent and cautious given the acknowledged gaps in knowledge about Saudi operations," according to an email presented to the court.

Saudi Arabia is currently leading a military coalition of Arab nations in Yemen, where an ongoing war has claimed over 10,000 people since March 2015.

The coalition is accused of war crimes by rights groups and observers.